op  WAGES  AND  JHE  TARIFF 

°» 


I  AN    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    IN    JOINT    DEBATE    WITH    HON. 
BENJAMIN    BUTTERWORTH, 

BOSTON,  MARCH  24,  1888, 

BY 

EVERETT    P.  WHEELER. 

TVITH 

AN  APPENDIX  OF  STATISTICS,  REPLY  TO  CRITICISMS,  ETC, 


NEW   YORK: 
THE    REFORM    CLUB, 

12  EAST  33n  STREET. 
1888. 


PREFACE. 


MY  address  in  the  joint  debate  with  Representative  Benjamin  Butterworth, 
at  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  March  24,  1888,  has  been  severely  criticised.  I 
am  much  obliged  to  my  critics,  and  have  learned  a  great  deal  from  their  articles. 
I  have  omitted  from  the  body  of  the  speech  as  published,  or  have  indicated  Jt>y 
a  footnote,  every  statement  in  the  original  speech  which  has  been  contradicted; 
and  I  request  every  candid  reader  to  consider  whether  the  omission  has  impaired 
in  the  slightest  degree  the  force  of  the  argument.  I  print  in  an  appendix  the 
portions  which  have  been  contradicted,  with  some  additional  statistics  which 
throw  light  upon  the  subject,  and  which  will,  I  hope,  convince  those  who  take 
pains  to  examine  them,  that  my  original  statements  were  substantially  correct. 
I  will  add  that  the  statements  which  have  been  challenged  were  made  as  the 
result  of  careful  examination  of  the  subject  for  many  years ;  and  that  I  solicit 
the  most  thorough  investigation  of  them,  only  requesting  my  readers  to  remem- 
ber that  the  contradiction  of  a  single  statement,  even  if  sustained,  does  not 
involve  necessarily  the  validity  of  the  argument  which  the  statement  was  meant 
to  illustrate. 

EVERETT  P.  WHEELER. 


ME.   WHEELER'S   OPENING  SPEECH. 

STATEMENTS    NOT    CONTRADICTED   (AS    YET)    BY 
THE   PROTECTIONISTS. 


THE  question  we  are  to  discuss,  my  friends,  is  this :  Is  the  wage-earner  bene- 
fited by  the  protective  policy  as  embodied  in  the  present  tariff?  It  is  not  a 
theoretical  question  to  be  discussed  as  were  those  we  handled,  when  we  were 
boys,  in  our  debating  societies.  It  is  a  question  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
every  one  of  you,  —  indeed,  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  America.  The 
time  has  come  when  the  taxes  are  much  more  than  we  need  each  year  to  sup- 
port the  government  and  pay  the  interest  on  the  debt,  and  all  of  the  principal 
that  we  are  able  to  pay.  To  allow  this  money  to  accumulate  in  the  treasury  is 
wasteful.  It  ought  to  be  in  the  pockets  of  the  people,  where  it  will  do  the  most 
good ;  and  the  question  that  Congress  must  decide  is  whether  the  taxes  shall  be 
reduced  on  imported  articles  or  on  whiskey.  These  are  the  two  great  sources 
of  revenue,  and  one  or  the  other  must  be  diminished.  If  the  protective  system, 
as  embodied  in  the  present  tariff,  is  beneficial  to  the  wage-earner,  then  certainly 
it  ought  to  be  continued.  In  this  matter,  the  interest  of  those  who  earn  their 
living  by  day's  wages  is  of  the  very  first  importance.  But  who  are  the  wage- 
earners  ?  Not  alone  the  workers  in  our  great  factories,  who  are  the  persons 
the  protectionists  claim  are  benefited  by  the  tariff.  The  man  who  labors  on  the 
farm;  the  clerk  who  toils  in  an  office;  the  engineer,  the  conductor,  the  brake- 
man,  who  run  the  railway-train,  —  these  are  all  wage-earners.  They  and  their 
families  constitute  the  large  majority  of  the  people  of  this  country;  and,  as  Mr. 
Webster  said,  "  The  great  interests  of  this  country  are  so  united  and  insepa- 
rable, that  agriculture,  commerce,  and  manufactures  will  prosper  together,  or 
languish  together.  All  legislation  is  dangerous  which  proposes  to  benefit  one 
of  these  without  looking  to  the  consequences  which  may  fall  on  the  others." 
For  myself,  I  am  thoroughly  persuaded,  not  as  the  result  of  theory,  but  of  prac- 
tical observation,  that  the  protective  system,  as  embodied  in  the  present  tariff, 
does  not  benefit  but 

INJURES  THE   WAGE-EARNER; 

and  not  only  the  wage-earner  on  the  farm,  or  in  the  counting-house,  or  on  the 
sea,  but  the  wage-earner  in  the  factory,  —  in  short,  every  one  of  you  who  hears 

3 


my  voice;  and  therefore  it  is  that  I  ask  you  to  listen  to  what  I  have  to  say,  to 
cast  aside  all  prejudice,  and  to  look  at  the  facts  just  as  they  really  are. 

What  does  the  wage-earner  want  ?  That  is  the  real  question.  Whatever  else 
he  may  or  may  not  want,  certain  it  is  that  he  needs  a  comfortable  home  for 
himself  and  his  wife  and  children,  clothing  to  protect  them  from  the  cold,  fuel 
to  heat  their  rooms  and  cook  their  food,  and  good,  wholesome  food,  and  enough 
of  it.  The  question  is  not,  how  many  hours  he  shall  work,  or  how  many  bank- 
notes he  gets  for  his  work,  but  what  will  his  wages  buy  ? 

The  first  thing  I  ask  you  to  consider  is  this:  That  no  man  in  our  climate  can, 
with  his  own  hands,  make  enough  of  the  articles  he  needs  for  his  own  wants, 
much  less  for  those  of  his  family.  He  can  make  clothing  enough  for  them;  but 
if  he  spends  his  time  in  making  clothing,  he  cannot  be  building  a  house;  he 
cannot  be  digging  coal,  or  chopping  wood;  he  cannot  be  cultivating  the  earth, 
and  producing  food.  The  first  requisite  to  the  comfort  of  the  wage-earner  is 
sufficient  production,  — that  there  should  be  enough  clothing  and  food  and  fuel 
produced  in  the  world  to  make  all  the  people  in  it  comfortable.  But  it  is 
equally  important  that  the  wage-earners  should  be  able  to  exchange  with  each 
other  the  fruits  of  their  labor,  so  that  each  man  who  has  more  than  he  wants  of 
one  thing,  —  more  fuel,  or  more  food,  or  more  clothing,  — may  exchange  it  for 
that  which  another  has  produced,  and  of  which  he  in  his  turn  has  more  than 
he  wants.  If  this  were  possible,  all  would  be  well,  and  all  the  world  would  be 
happy.  The  great  aim  of  modern  civilization  is  to  increase  the  facility  for 
exchanging  the  products  of  human  skill  and  human  industry.  Why  did  you 
build  a  railroad  from  Boston  to  Albany,  and  help  to  build  another  across  the 
continent  to  San  Francisco  ?  Why,  indeed,  have  you  extended  from  Boston 
a  network  of  railroads,  so  that  it  may  be  truly  said  of  your  great  city,  as  it  was 
of  Nuremberg,  that  your  hand  goes  through  every  land  ?  Why  but  that  you 
might  have  in  your  furnaces  and  in  your  stoves  the  coal  of  Pennsylvania  ? 
that  you  might  eat  bread  made  from  the  wheat  of  Illinois  and  Nebraska  ?  that 
you  might  wear  clothing  made  from  the  wool  of  Ohio  and  Texas  and  the  cotton 
of  Alabama,  and  sleep  under  blankets  that  grew  on  a  California  sheep  ?  that  you 
might  sweeten  your  coffee  with  sugar  from  the  cane  of  Louisiana?  And  in  re- 
turn for  these,  you  give  to  the  farmer,  to  the  wool-grower,  to  the  cotton-planter, 
the  products  of  your  own  industry.  There  is  not  a  country-store  throughout 
the  Union  that  has  not  on  its  shelves  the  fabrics  of  Lowell  and  Lawrence, 
and  the  boots  and  shoes  of  Natick  and  of  Lynn. 

We  speak  of  the  wonderful  growth  of  our  country.  The  first  element  of 
that  growth  is  the  prohibition  in  the  federal  Constitution  of  any  tax  upon  the 
exchange  of  products  between  different  States  of  the  Union.  Does  anybody 
doubt  that  the  wage-earner  in  Massachusetts  is  better  off  than  he  was  before 
these  railroads  were  built,  when  the  expense  of  transportation  was  such  that 

HE   COULD  NOT  TRADE  TO  ADVANTAGE 

in  the  products  of  the  inland  States  ?  Does  anybody  contend  that  the  great 
iron-roads  that  lead  from  your  prosperous  city,  as  in  the  old  times  all  roads  led 
to  Rome,  have  not  enriched  every  wage-earner  in  Massachusetts,  as  well  as  the 
engineers  who  projected,  and  the  capitalists  who  furnished  the  money  to  build, 
them  ?  All  this  nobody  does  deny,  —  nobody  can  deny.  When,  two  weeks  ago, 


a  great  storm  cut  off  your  communication  with  the  other  States,  it  came  as  a 
calamity.  Every  man  in  Boston  knew  that,  if  that  blockade  continued,  it 
meant  ruin,  not  only  to  your  railroads,  but  to  your  wage-earners,  to  the  clerks 
and  the  spinners  alike.  The  storm  protected  you  from  the  wheat  of  the  West 
and  the  cotton  of  the  South.  But  you  do  not  want  to  be  protected  from  the 
wheat  of  the  West  and  the  cotton  of  the  South :  you  want  to  have  them  come 
into  your  State  freely,  and  to  pay  for  them  in  what  you  yourselves,  with  your 
ingenuity  and  industry,  are  able  to  make,  and  with  your  enterprise  are  able  to 
transport  to  other  States.  The  monstrous  absurdity  of  the  protective  system  is 
simply  this:  that  it  really  asserts  that  scarcity  is  better  than  abundance;  that 
it  is  an  injury  to  you  to  trade  with  other  countries;  that  the  benefits  which  flow 
from  the  free  exchange  of  merchandise  with  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  would 
not  flow  from  the  exchange  of  commodities  with  England  and  with  France.  Who 
can  tell  me  why  it  is  not  as  good  for  a  man  who  earns  his  living  in  Massachu- 
setts, to  be  able  to  buy  English  goods  or  French  goods,  if  he  likes,  and  to  be 
able  in  return  to  sell  American  goods  to  the  people  of  France  and  England,  if 
he  likes  ?  If  we  trade  with  them,  it  is  because  they  have  goods  that  we  want, 
and  we  have  goods  that  they  want,  and  thus  the  trade  is  a  benefit  to  us  both. 
The  protectionists  themselves  admit  that  trade  with  foreign  countries  is  a  bene- 
fit to  America.  For  they  deplore  the  decay  of  American  shipping,  and  are  pro- 
posing to  give  a  bounty  to  American  ships  for  carrying  the  products  of  other 
countries  to  this  country,  and  for  taking  ours  back  in  return.  What  monstrous 
inconsistency !  They  enact  a  high  tariff,  far  in  excess  of  the  needs  of  revenue, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  taxation,  but  for  the  purpose  of  excluding  the  goods  of 
other  countries;  and  then,  having  crippled  commerce  with  one  hand,  they  pro- 
pose to  nurse  it  with  the  other. 

Thus  I  have  stated  to  you  in  brief  the  principle  that  underlies  this  whole 
question  of  the  tariff.  If  it  is  good  to  exchange  what  we  can  make  with  what 
other  countries  can  make,  then  a  high  protective  tariff,  which  hinders  us  from 
doing  this,  is  an  evil.  If  it  is  not  good  to  exchange  and  trade  with  other  coun- 
tries, then  a  high  protective  tariff,  which  hinders  that  exchange,  and  prevents 
that  commerce,  is  a  benefit.  There  is  the  whole  question  in  a  nut-shell.  But 
my  friend  will  say,  as  so  many  before  him  have  said,  "  All  this  is  theory,  — very 
good  in  theory,  but  not  good  in  practice."  Well,  what  is  theory  ?  A  theory  is 
only  a  convenient  mode  of  stating  facts.  A  thing  cannot  be  right  in  theory,  and 
wrong  in  practice,  any  more  than  it  can  be  wrong  in  theory  to  lie,  but  right  in 
practice  to  deceive.  But  as  my  knowledge  of  the  tariff  has  come,  not  from 
theory,  but  from  actual 

OBSERVATION  AND  EXPERIENCE, 

I  am  only  too  glad  to  join  with  any  one  in  discussing  the  tariff  from  a  practical 
stand-point;  and  at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  let  me  tell  you  what  first  led  me 
to  study  the  present  tariff. 

A  German  steamer  ran  down  a  bark  that  had  been  built  in  Nova  Scotia,  cut  a 
hole  in  her  side,  knocked  her  over  on  her  beam-ends,  and  left  her  floating  in 
the  ocean  off  Nantucket.  Some  enterprising  skipper  found  her  and  towed 
her  into  port;  she  was  condemned  for  salvage,  and  brought  to  East  Boston  to  be 
repaired.  I  was  retained  to  bring  a  suit  against  the  German  steamer;  and  when 


6 

I  came  to  prove  my  damages,  I  found  that,  as  the  vessel  had  not  been  destroyed, 
it  was  necessary  to  prove  what  it  cost  to  repair  her.  You  will  understand  that 
the  owners  had  given  her  up  entirely.  She  was  lost  to  them,  and  had  become 
the  property  of  the  salvors  under  a  decree  of  the  United  States  court.  But  I 
found  out  who  had  repaired  her,  and  what  those  repairs  cost;  and,  to  my  aston- 
ishment, I  learned  that  it  cost  more  to  repair  her  in  Boston  than  it  cost  to  build 
the  entire  bark  in  Nova  Scotia.  Now,  I  remembered  very  well,  when  a  boy,  to 
have  gone  to  the  ship-yards,  and  seen  ships  launched  in  the  East  River,  as  some 
of  you,  perhaps,  have  seen  ships  launched  in  the  harbor  of  Boston;  and  I 
said  to  myself,  Why  is  it  that  ships  can  no  longer  be  built  in  New  York  or 
Boston,  and  that  the  British  are  taking  away  all  the  ship-building  trade  ?  My 
evidence  in  the  collision  case  answered  this  question  very  quickly,  for  I  found 
that  they  could  build  ships  cheaper.  Then  I  inquired,  Are  their  ship-builders 
any  better  than  ours?  No.  Does  it  cost  any  more  for  wages  to  build  a  ship  in 
Nova  Scotia  than  in  Boston?  No.  For  although  our  men  get  higher  wages, 
yet  they  are  better  workmen,  and  the  cost  for  wages  on  the  ship  is  no  more  than 
it  is  in  the  British  Possessions.  Then  I  looked  into  the  tariff,  and  found  that 
every  article  that  went  into  the  construction  of  a  ship  was  taxed  thirty,  forty, 
fifty,  a  hundred  per  cent,  —  the  ropes,  the  timber,  every  thing  from  the  truck  to 
the  keelson,  paid  a  tax  to  the  United  States  Government.  Ostensibly  this  was 
for  the  benefit  of  American  industry,  but  really  it  was  to  enable  the  iron-mas- 
ters of  Pennsylvania  to  get  more  for  their  iron  than  it  was  worth.  Ostensibly 
it  was  to  benefit  the  wage-earner,  but  really  it  had  destroyed  or  crippled  the 
business  of  every  shipwright  along  the  Atlantic  coast.1  This  set  me  to  inquir- 
ing into  other  branches  of  industry;  and  I  studied  the  census,  and  the  reports 
from  the  different  manufacturers,  and  talked  with  men  engaged  in  manufactur- 
ing, and  I  came  to  see  clearly  this  great  practical  truth  that  I  want  you  to 
remember,  to  think  over,  and  to  test  the  tariff  by.  The  wages  of  a  wage- 
earner  depend  upon  three  things :  — 

First,  Demand  and  supply. 

Second,  The  cost  of  material. 

Third,  The  efficiency  of  the  labor. 

The  first  is  supply  and  demand.  If  there  are  more  laborers  to  do  a  particular 
kind  of  work  than  there  is  work  for  them  to  do,  their  wages  go  down.  If  there 
is  more  work  to  be  done  than  there  are  men  to  do  it,  their  wages  go  up.  This  is 
the  first  thing. 

The  second  is  the  cost  of  the  material  on  which  the  men  are  working.  If 
a  tailor  has  a  hundred  coats  to  make,  and  the  cloth  and  trimmings  cost  him  a 
thousand  dollars,  he  can  afford  to  pay,  and  will  pay, 

1  By  the  Act  of  June  6, 1872,  re-enacted  in  the  United  States  Rev.  Stat.  sect.  2513,  "  All  lumber, 
timber,  hemp,  manila,  wire  rope,  and  iron  and  steel  rods,  bars,  spikes,  nails  and  bolts,  and  cop- 
per and  composition  metal,  which  may  be  necessary  for  the  construction  and  equipment  of  ves- 
sels built  in  the  United  States  for  foreign  account  and  ownership,  or  for  the  purpose  of  being 
employed  in  the  foreign  trade,"  may  be  imported  in  bond.  "  Upon  proof  that  such  materials  have 
been  used  for  such  purpose,  no  duties  shall  be  paid  thereon."  It  will  be  observed  that  this  Act 
does  not  exempt  the  iron  forging.*,  plates,  and  beams  which  form  the  principal  part  of  an  iron  ves- 
sel. These  are  subject  to  duties  varying  from  one  and  a  half  to  two  cents  a  pound.  But  still, 
this  Act  was  undoubtedly  a  step  in  the  rjght  direction;  and  if  the  policy  thus  enacted,  which  is  in 
the  main  the  policy  of  the  Mills  Bill  now  pending  in  Congress,  should  be  followed,  it  would 
undoubtedly  be  a  great  benefit  to  American  industry. 


HIGHER  WAGES  FOR  MAKING  THEM 

than  if  the  same  cloth  and  trimmings  cost  him  two  thousand  dollars.  Observe,  I 
do  not  say  that  tailors  are  paid  more  for  working  on  inferior  goods.  But  what 
I  do  say  is,  that,  if  the  cloth  be  the  same,  the  cheaper  the  material,  the  better  the 
wages,  and  that  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the  price  of  the  material 
being  reduced,  the  manufacturer  is  able  to  pay  better  wages,  and  yet  sell  his 
goods  at  a  lesser  price;  and  second,  the  goods  when  sold  being  cheaper,  the 
demand  for  them  at  once  increases,  and  this  increases  the  demand  for  labor  to 
work  upon  them.  I  read  the  other  day  a  very  remarkable  telegram  which 
illustrates  this,  which  I  will  now  read  to  you. 

WOONSOCKET,  R.I.,  March  6, 1888. 

The  operatives  in  the  Social  Mill  were  surprised  to-day,  when  they  received 
their  pay,  to  find  that  their  wages  had  been  advanced  five  per  cent.  The 
employees  of  the  Nourse  and  Globe  Mills,  owned  by  the  Social  Company,  will 
receive  the  same  advance  to-morrow.  This  affects  two  thousand  hands.  There 
has  been  no  request  for  an  advance  from  the  employees,  the  action  being  taken 
by  the  company  on  account  of  the  favorable  state  of  the  market  and  the  low 
prices  of  cotton.  —  The  New-York  Times,  March  7. 

The  third  element  in  determining  the  rate  of  wages  is  the  productiveness  of 
labor.  A  man  who  is  energetic  and  industrious  and  thorough  in  his  work  will 
almost  always  get  better  wages  than  a  man  who  is  not.  I  know  that  in  some 
trades  an  endeavor  has  been  made  to  compel  employers  to  pay  all  workmen  of 
the  same  grade  the  same  wages,  irrespective  of  their  skill  and  effectiveness. 
But  these  are  exceptions,  brought  about  by  interference  with  the  freedom  of 
contract  between  the  workman  and  his  employers,  and  the  number  is  exceed- 
ingly small.  In  all  trades  the  journeyman  is  paid  more  than  the  laborer,  the 
skilled  mechanic  more  than  the  unskilled  laborer,  and  he  is  paid  more  because 
he  earns  more.  A  mason  who  can  lay  twice  as  many  bricks  in  a  day  as  another 
is  worth  twice  as  much,  and  he  ought  to  be  paid  twice  as  much;  and,  unless 
somebody  steps  in  to  prevent  it,  he  always  will  be  paid  more. 

To  repeat.  The  three  elements  that  practically  influence  the  rate  of  wages 
are,  — 

First,  Demand  and  supply. 

Second,  Cheapness  of  material. 

Third,  Productiveness  of  the  labor. 

The  protective  system,  as  embodied  in  the  existing  tariff,  reduces  the  wages 
of  the  wage-earner  in  every  one  of  these  particulars.  And  the  errors  of  this 
system,  so  far  as  they  are  honest  errors,  are  due  to  a  failure  to  appreciate  this 
important  practical  truth  to  which  I  have  called  your  attention. 

DEMAND  FOR  LABOR  DIMINISHED. 

In  the  first  place  it  diminishes  the  demand  for  his  labor.  We  make  good 
carpets  in  this  country.  The  Bigelow  Carpet  Company,  and  others  that  might 
be  named,  are  beginning  to  make  as  good  carpets  as  are  made  anywhere  in  the 
world;  but  we  cannot  export  them,  because  of  the  tariff  on  wool.  We  make 
as  good  tinware  as  is  made  anywhere  in  the  world.  We  cannot  export  it, 
because  of  the  tax  on  tin  plates.  We  make  the  best  brass  goods  in  the  world; 


8 

but  we  cannot  export  them,  because  of  the  duty  on  copper.1  We  make  excellent 
paints;  but  we  cannot  export  them,  because  of  the  duty  on  the  lead  out  of  which 
they  are  made.  Take  the  whole  tariff  list  from  beginning  to  end.  There  is  no 
tax  in  it  which  does  not  diminish  the  demand  for  American  labor  by  imposing 
burdens  upon  the  materials  out  of  which  American  goods  are  made.2 

Thus  it  is  that  the  protective  system,  as  embodied  in  the  present  tariff,  dimin- 
ishes the  wages  of  the  wage-earner  by  diminishing  the  demand  for  his  labor. 

DEAR  MATERIALS  A  DISADVANTAGE. 

In  the  second  place,  the  protective  system,  as  embodied  in  the  existing  tariff, 
diminishes  the  wages  of  the  American  wage-earner,  and  injures  instead  of 
benefiting  him,  by  increasing  the  price  of  the  material  on  which  he  labors.  The 
wool  out  of  which  our  carpets  are  made  pays  a  tax  when  it  enters  the  country. 
Every  yard  of  carpet  costs  the  buyer  and  consumer  fifteen  cents  more,  because 
of  the  duty  on  wool;  and,  in  this  climate,  the  buyer  and  consumer  of  woollen 
carpets  is  a  very  important  person.  Every  tin  pan  costs  the  economical  house- 
keeper more,  every  tin  roof  increases  the  rent  of  the  victims  that  are  under  it, 
every  can  of  tomatoes  or  oysters  costs  more  to  the  eater  of  those  tomatoes  or 
oysters,  because  of  the  tax  on  tin  plates.  Every  yard  of  calico  costs  the  woman 
that  wears  it  more,  because  of  the  tax  on  dye-stuffs;  every  pound  of  paint  costs 
more,  because  of  the  tax  on  lead;  every  house  costs  more,  because  of  the  tax 
that  is  levied  on  the  materials  of  which  it  is  composed.  The  result  of  this  is, 
that  the  wages  of  the  workman  are  diminished,  and  he  must  either  pay  more 
for  his  food,  his  clothes,  and  his  rent,  or  live  in  a  poorer  home,  and  get  along 
with  less  food  and  clothing. 

Some  years  ago,  I  had  occasion  to  build  four  houses.  I  found,  that,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  tax  upon  the  materials  of  which  those  houses  were  built,  I  could 
have  built  five  with  the  same  money.  The  saving  in  the  cost  of  material  would 
have  gone  for  wages.  This  would  have  increased  the  demand  for  carpenters  and 
bricklayers,  and  would  have  diminished  the  rents  they  would  pay  for  apartments 
in  the  houses  when  finished.  Instead  of  this,  their  wages  did  not  increase,  their 
rents  were  higher,  and  the  money  that  would  have  gone  into  their  pockets 
enriched  the  Michigan  lumber-barons  and  the  Providence  Screw  Company.3 

While  I  am  on  the  subject  of  houses,  let  me  tell  you  one  extraordinary  fact 
that  I  would  like  every  citizen  of  Boston  to  lay  to  heart.  Since  Prince  Bismarck 
compelled  Hamburg  to  submit  to  a  high  protective  tariff,  there  has  not  been  a 
house  built  in  that  city.  Before  that  time  it  was  a  free  port,  and  one  of  the 
most  thriving  cities  in  Europe. 

One  more  fact  in  support  of  my  proposition,  and  I  pass  to  another  branch  of 
the  subject.  I  have  spoken  of  the  tax  on  iron  and  other  materials  for  building 
ships,  and  of  its  effect  in  crippling  the  ship-building  trade.  The  result  has  been, 
that,  in  the  few  ship-yards  that  remain,  the  wages  of  the  workmen  are  actually 
less  than  they  were  before  the  war,  although  the  cost  of  living  has  so  largely 
increased. 

1  While  this  was  going  through  the  press,  "  The  New- York  Tribune  "  attacked  this  statement. 
My  answer  is  in  Appendix  I.,  p.  19. 

2  A  discussion  here  ensued  in  reference  to  the  tax  on  nickel  and  screws,  which  has  given  rise  to 
criticism,  and  which,  with  the  criticism  and  the  reply,  will  be  found  in  Appendix  II.,  pp.  21-26. 

3  The  facts  thus  stated  have  not  been  denied ;  but  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  refute  the  argu- 
ment, which  is  noticed  in  Appendix  III.,  p.  26. 


9 

The  injustice  of  the  present  tariff  is  increasing  every  year.  Every  year  the 
cost  of  material  bears  a  larger  proportion  to  the  cost  of  the  finished  product. 
Every  year  the  amount  of  wages  paid  bears  a  smaller  proportion  to  the  cost  of 
the  finished  product.  In  1850  the  materials  used  in  American  industry  were 
forty-five  per  cent  of  the  value  of  the  finished  product.  In  1880  so  great  had 
been  the  progress  in  the  effectiveness  of  our  machinery,  that  the  percentage  of 
the  cost  of  material  had  increased  to  sixty-three  per  cent;  that  is  to  say,  for 
every  one  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  finished  goods,  the  materials  out  of  which 
they  were  made  cost  sixty-three  dollars.  On  the  other  hand,  during  all  this 
time  the  proportion  of  wages  to  the  finished  product  was  continually  becoming 
less.  In  1850  the  proportion  of  the  wages  paid  for  producing  the  various 
products  of  American  industry  was  twenty-three  per  cent ;  in  1880  it  was  only 
seventeen  per  cent.  That  is  to  say,  to  make  one  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
goods,  cost  on  the  average  for  wages  only  seventeen  dollars,  whereas  in  1850  it 
cost  twenty-three  dollars. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts  the  protectionist  has  the  effrontery  to  tell  us  that  it 
is  necessary  to  keep  up  an  average  tariff  tax  of  forty-seven  per  cent  upon 
imported  articles,  when  the  percentage  of  wages  in  the  finished  product  of 
American  industry  is  only  seventeen  per  cent.  That  is  to  say,  the  tariff  tax  is 
more  than  twice  as  much  as  the  entire  cost  of  wages  paid  for  the  production  of 
American  goods.1  It  is  evident,  my  friends,  from  this  simple  statement,  that  it 
is  not  necessary  to  keep  the  tariff  tax  at  an  average  of  forty-seven  per  cent  in 
order  to  increase  the  wages  of  American  workmen. 

EFFECTIVENESS  OF  LABOR. 

My  third  point  is,  that  the  tariff  tends  to  limit  the  benefit  that  we  ought  to 
derive  from  the  effectiveness  of  American  labor.  That  labor  is  the  most 
productive  in  the  world.  All  the  students  of  manufacturing  industries  agree 
in  this.  Mr.  Blaine  and  Mr.  Evarts,  when  each  was  secretary  of  state,  asserted 
this  most  positively.  An  American  mason  lays  more  bricks  in  a  day  than  an 
English  mason.  An  American  cotton-spinner  spins  more  yards  of  cloth  in  a 
day  than  an  English  cotton-spinner.  The  English  mason  and  cotton-spinner, 
in  their  turn,  do  more  work  in  a  day  than  the  masons  and  spinners  of  France 
and  Germany.  The  average  number  of  pounds  of  cotton  worked  up  by  each 
American  spinner  in  a  year  is  4,350;  in  England,  2,914;  in  Germany,  1,200. 
The  average  number  of  pounds  of  wool  worked  up  by  each  weaver  in  America 
in  a  year  is  1,640;  in  England,  1,275;  in  Germany,  975. 

Mr.  Porter,  the  secretary  of  the  tariff  commission,  told  a  pitiful  tale  of  the 
wretched  nail-makers  in  England,  who  still  make  nails  by  hand,  a  few  pounds 

1  Mr.  AlauBon  W.  Beard,  while  not  denying  the  accuracy  of  these  figures,  has  tried  to  refute 
the  argument  drawn  from  them  by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  material  of  one  industry 
is  the  product  of  another.  This  in  true,  but  it  does  not  affect  the  validity  of  the  argument.  In 
the  census-tables  from  which  the  computations  in  the  text  are  made,  the  wages  that  entered  into 
the  production  of  the  cruder  product,  as,  for  example,  leather,  are  stated  in  the  wages  column 
as  well  as  those  which  entered  into  the  production  of  the  more  finished  product,  as,  for  example, 
boots  and  shoes.  The  wages  that  entered  into  the  production  of  pigs  and  ingots  are  included  in 
the  wages  column  as  well  as  those  which  were  paid  for  making  rails  and  hardware.  The  per- 
centage la  arrived  at  by  comparing  the  totals  of  both  columns,  so  that  allowance  is  made  for  the 
fact  stated  by  Mr.  Beard.  Attention  is  called  more  particularly  to  this  matter  in  Appendix  VI., 


10 

a  day.  In  Harrisburg,  Perm.,  there  is  a  factory,  where,  by  the  aid  of  nail- 
machines,  each  man  makes  over  two  kegs  of  nails  a  day.  His  wages  are  more, 
but  the  cost  per  pound  of  nails  is  less.  Depend  upon  it,  it  always  pays  to  get 
a  good  article.  An  efficient  laborer  is  cheaper  than  an  inefficient  one,  though 
you  pay  him  twice  as  much. 

The  American  workman  is  better  fed,  better  housed,  better  clothed,  than  the 
English  workman,  and  therefore  he  does  more  work  in  a  day,  and  therefore 
earns  more  money.  The  English  workman  is  better  fed,  better  clothed,  better 
housed,  than  the  workman  of  France  and  Germany,  and  therefore  he  does  more 
work  in  a  day,  and  therefore  earns  more  money.  Physical  conditions  affect  a 
man  just  as  they  do  a  horse.  Qive  a  horse  a  good  stable,  feed  him  well,  treat 
him  well,  and  he  will  do  more  work  in  a  day  than  a  horse  who  is  badly  fed  and 
badly  treated,  and  therefore  he  is  a  cheaper  horse  to  hire,  though  he  cost  you 
twice  as  much  for  his  hay  and  oats.  The  protectionist  reasoning  begins  at  the 
wrong  end.  The  horse  does  not  eat  more  because  he  is  paid  more.  He  is 
paid  more  because  he  does  more  work. 

More  important  than  these  physical  conditions  are  the  opportunities  that  we 
give  to  every  man  to  better  his  condition.  We  have  no  great  standing  army  to 
support.  No  man  is  obliged  to  spend  four  or  five  of  the  best  years  of  his  life 
in  an  army.  In  short,  American  freedom  gives  a  courage  and  energy  and 
effectiveness  to  the  American  laborer  that  no  other  laborer  in  the  world  can 
claim.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that,  just  before  the  Franco-Prussian  war, 
Napoleon  III.  sent  a  commission  of  the  first  surgeons  of  France  to  this  coun- 
try to  investigate  the  reason  why,  during  the  war  with  the  South,  so  many 
more  men  recovered  from  amputations  than  there  were  who  recovered  in  the 
French  army  in  the  Crimean  and  Italian  wars.  These  eminent  men  examined 
the  subject  thoroughly,  and  reported  that  the  reason  was  the  energy  and  self- 
reliance  of  the  American  character;  that  the  American  soldiers  knew  how  to 
take  care  of  themselves  better,  were  more  persevering  and  more  enduring  than 
French  soldiers,  and  the  result  was  natural.  Examine  every  branch  of  our 
industry,  and  you  will  find  that  these  American  qualities  increase  the  effective- 
ness of  the  workmen;  and  when  I  say  the  American  workman,  I  mean  not 
only  the  American-born,  but  the  Irishmen  and  Germans  who  have  been 

WELCOMED  TO  THE   LAND  OF  LIBERTY, 

and  whose  pulses  are  quickened  with  American  freedom.  If  our  trade  with 
foreign  countries  were  not  crippled  by  a  heavy,  and  in  many  instances  a  pro- 
hibitory, tax,  this  free  American  industry  would  have  fair  play,  and  would  fill 
American  ships  with  the  products  of  American  factories.  But  this  trade  is  now 
so  heavily  taxed  that  we  are  deprived  of  all  our  natural  advantages,  and  left  far 
behind  in  the  race.  Our  horse  is  the  best,  but  no  horse  can  win  when  he  carries 
the  weight  of  a  forty-seven  per  cent  tariff  tax.  England,  to-day,  with  half  our 
population,  sells  to  other  countries  more  manufactured  goods  of  her  own  pro- 
duction than  the  entire  product  of  this  tax-ridden  country. 

My  friend  will,  no  doubt,  insist  that  the  present  high  protective  tariff  is  the 
reason  why  the  American  workman  is  better  off  than  the  foreign  workman. 
But  this  is  mere  theory,  without  any  facts  to  support  it.  These  facts  are  all  the 
other  way,  and  this  I  will  prove  to  you  immediately. 


11 

1.  If  a  protective  tariff  increases  wages,  and  improves  the  condition  of  work- 
ingmen,  it  ought  to  do  so  in  all  countries  in  which  there  are  high  protective 
tariffs.     In  point  of  fact,  the  English  workman  in  a  free-trade  country  has 
higher  wages  and  lives  better  than  a  workman  in  Germany,  where  a  high 
protective  tariff  prevails. 

2.  If  a  high  protective  tariff  increases  the  wages  of  the  workingmen,  then 
the  repeal  of  this  tariff  and  the  substitution  of  a  low  revenue  tariff  would  injure 
him.    In  point  of  fact,  the  contrary  has  been  the  case,  both  in  England  and 
this  country. 

From  1842  to  1846  we  had  in  this  country  a  high  protective  tariff.  In  1840 
this  was  repealed,  and  the  Walker  tariff  was  enacted.  The  manufacturers 
groaned,  and  declared  that  they  would  be  ruined.  But  the  result  showed  that 
they  were  mistaken.  The  country  never  prospefed  as  it  did  from  1850  to  1860. 

Per  cent. 

Capital  engaged  in  manufactures  increased 90 

Wages  of  workmen  engaged  in  manufacturing  increased 60 

The  miles  of  railroad  built  increased 220 

The  value  of  farms  increased 103 

And  of  live-stock 100 

Our  national  wealth  as  a  whole  increased 126 

During  the  war  the  internal-revenue  taxes  on  our  domestic  productions  were 
almost  as  high  as  the  tariff  taxes,  so  that  the  ten  years  from  1860  to  1870  form 
no  fair  basis  for  comparison.  But  most  of  the  internal-revenue  taxes  on  manu- 
factures were  repealed  about  the  year  1870,  and  during  the  ten  years  from  1870 
we  felt  the  full  effects  of  a  high  protective  tariff.  What  were  the  gains  then  ? 

Capital  engaged  in  manufacturing  increased  only  thirty-two  percent, — only 
one-third;  wages  increased  twenty-two  per  cent,  —  only  one-third;  railroads  in- 
creased sixty-six  percent,  —  only  one-quarter;  total  wealth  increased  forty  per 
cent,  —  only  one-third. 

In  other  words,  under  a  revenue  tariff,  capital  engaged  in  manufacturing,  and 
wages  and  national  wealth  all  increased  three  times  as  much  as  under  a  high  pro- 
tective tariff;  and  railroad  building  increased  four  times  as  much.1 

Who,  in  the  face  of  these  facts,  can  say  that  the  present  tariff  benefits  the 
wage-earner  ? 

1  "  The  Boston  Journal "  (protectionist)  has  published  an  article  in  which,  while  admitting 
the  percentages  thus  stated,  it  takes  exception  to  the  mode  of  comparison  by  percentages,  and 
claims  that  the  amount  of  increase  would  be  a  fairer  lest.  The  error  of  this  assumption  will  be 
made  plain  by  the  following  illustration  :  — 

Suppose  the  question  were,  which  of  two  investments  was  the  most  productive?  Jones  invests 
a  thousand  dollars,  and  receives  as  income  from  it  sixty  dollars  in  a  year.  Smith  invests  four 
thousand  dollars,  and  receives  as  income  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  in  a  year.  Jones's  in- 
terest on  his  investment  would  be  six  per  cent.  Smith's,  on  his,  would  be  only  three  per  cent. 
Plainly,  Jones's  investment  is  twice  as  productive  as  Smith's,  although,  owing  to  the  larger 
amount  of  his  capital,  Smith  received  twice  as  much  money  as  Jones. 

The  national  wealth  in  1850  was  $7,135,780,228.  In  1860  it  had  increased  to  $16,159,616,008. 
(Preliminary  Report  of  Eighth  Census,  p.  195.)  Now,  this  would  certainly  indicate  a  much  more 
favorable  condition  of  American  industry  in  general,  than  would  be  indicated  by  the  increase 
from  $30,068,518,507  in  1870  to  $43,642,000,000  in  1880;  and  after  making  an  allowance  of  one-sixth 
(Tribune  Almanac,  1886,  p.  55)  for  the  depreciated  currency  of  1870,  the  percentage  of  increase 
from  1850  to  1860  will  still  be  nearly  double  that  from  1870  to  1880. 


12 

PROSPERITY  UNDER  LOW  TARIFFS. 

In  a  word,  our  experience  shows  that  the  most  rapid  growth  of  this  country 
in  prosperity  has  not  been  under  a  protective  tariff.  There  never  was  what 
we  would  now  call  a  protective  tariff  in  this  country  till  1824.  All  the  tariffs 
before  that  time  were  much  lower  than  any  that  the  most  radical  revenue  re- 
former now  proposes.  There  was  a  high  protective  tariff  from  1824  till  1832; 
and  its  results  were  so  disastrous  that  the  very  author  of  it,  Mr.  Clay,  intro- 
duced a  bill  for  its  gradual  reduction.1  Our  second  high  protective  tariff  in  this 
country  was  passed  in  1842.  It  continued  in  operation  only  four  years;  and  then 
the  country  was  so  disgusted  with  it  that  a  revenue  tariff  was  adopted,  which 
continued  in  force  from  1846  to  1861.  So  beneficial  were  its  results,  that  in  1850, 
Henry  Clay,  the  author  of  the  protective  system  in  this  country,  from  his  place 
in  the  Senate  made  this  remarkable  admission :  — 

"  For  one,  I  should  be  extremely  delighted  if  the  subject  of  the  tariff  of  1846 
could  be  taken  up  in  a  liberal,  kind,  and  national  spirit;  not  with  any  purpose  of 
reviving  those  high  rates  of  protection,  which,  at  former  periods  of  our  country, 
were  establishedfor  various  causes,  —  sometimes  for  sinister  causes,  —  but  to  look 
deliberately  at  the  operation  of  the  tariff  of  1846;  and,  without  disturbing  its 
essential  provisions,  I  should  like  a  consideration  to  be  given  to  the  question  of 
the  prevention  of  fraiids  and  great  abuses,  of  the  existence  of  which  there  is  no 
earthly  doubt." 

So  great  was  the  benefit  which  accrued  to  New  England  from  this  reduction 
of  the  tariff,  that  in  1857  a  majority  of  the  representatives  in  Congress  from  New 
England  voted  for  a  still  further  reduction.  The  price  of  wool  was  higher  under 
this  tariff  than  it  has  been  under  a  high  protective  tariff,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  manufacturers  were  more  prosperous,  and  the  demand  for  wool  was 
greater.  The  experience  of  England  teaches  the  same  lesson.  Down  to  1849 
England  had  tried  the  experiment  of  a  high  protective  tariff.  Distress  and  suf- 
fering among  the  people  continually  increased.  At  last  the  populace  were  on 
the  verge  of  rebellion.  Famine  stared  them  in  the  face.  Factories  were  shut, 
and  poorhouses  were  crowded.  The  repeal  of  the  corn-laws  took  effect  in  1849, 
and  immediate  prosperity  began  to  return.  Now  mark  the  result. 

In  1840  the  population  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  was  26,487,026;  in  1880 
it  had  increased  to  34,505,043,  an  increase  of  about  twenty-five  per  cent.  The 
number  of  able-bodied  paupers,  which  in  1849,  the  last  year  of  the  English  high 
protective  tariff,  was  201,644,  had  decreased  under  the  operation  of  a  tariff  for 
revenue,  and  the  consequent  prosperity  which  it  had  brought  with  it,  to  126,228. 
In  other  words,  while  the  population  had  increased  twenty-five  per  cent,  the 
number  of  those  who  were  not  able  to  earn  a  living  for  themselves  and  their 
families  had  decreased  seventy-five  per  cent.  But  more  than  this,  the  prosperity 
of  a  country,  like  the  prosperity  of  an  individual,  can  be  measured  most 
accurately  by  the  amount  which  it  is 

ABLE  TO  PRODUCE   AND  SELL, 

above  what  it  needs  for  its  own  wants.     In  1840  the  entire  produce  of  the 
British  Islands  which  the  English  were  able  to  export,  amounted  to  £51,000,000 

1  See  Appendix  IV.,  p.  27. 


13 

or  about  $9.50  for  every  inhabitant.  In  1880,  tinder  the  beneficent  opera- 
tion of  a  tariff  for  revenue,  these  exports  had  increased  to  the  enormous 
amount  of  £223,000,000,  or  over  $1,000,000,000,  and  amounted  to  about  thirty- 
two  dollars  for  every  inhabitant  of  the  British  Islands.  Measured  by  this 
unfailing  test,  the  prosperity  of  England  has  been  quadrupled  by  a  low  tariff, 
and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  prosperity  of  Ireland  has  not 
increased  in  a  like  proportion,  owing  to  the  suffering  and  poverty  which  years 
of  misgovernment  had  brought  upon  the  Irish  people.  The  most  flagrant 
instance  of  this  misgovernment  was  the  selfish  protective  tariff  which  the 
English  imposed  in  order  to  exclude  the  manufactures  of  Ireland  from  com- 
petition with  those  of  England.  This  tariff  continued  for  over  a  century ;  and 
every  Irishman  should  remember  that  the  great  leaders  in  the  cause  of  Irish 
emancipation,  Curran  and  Grattan,  both  distinctly  recognized  the  fact  that  the 
only  hope  for  prosperity  to  Irish  manufactures  was  in  a  repeal  of  the  British 
protective  tariff.  If  there  be  an  Irishman  within  the  sound  of  my  voice,  I 
should  like  to  ask  him  two  questions :  — 

First,  Are  you  prepared  to  continue  in  America  that  high  protective  system 
which,  according  to  the  testimony  of  both  Curran  and  Grattan,  destroyed  the 
prosperity  of  your  own  island?  Second,  Do  you  think  it  necessary  to  the  welfare 
of  this  great  nation,  with  60,000,000  of  prosperous  people,  that  a  heavy  tax 
should  be  imposed  on  every  yard  of  Irish  linen  imported  into  this  country,  or 
are  you  not  prepared  to  say  that  America  can  assist  the  Irish  industries  that  still 
survive  by  putting  Irish  linen  on  the  free  list? 

I  have  shown  you  that  the  exports  of  English  goods  under  a  revenue  tariff  quad- 
rupled in  forty  years.  With  the  goods  thus  exported,  the  English  workingman 
was  able  to  buy,  and  did  buy,  a  far  greater  quantity  of  the  comforts  of  life  than 
ever  he  could  under  the  protective  system.  They  bought  and  used  in  1880  four 
times  as  much  tea,  currants,  raisins,  and  sugar,  and  eight  times  as  much  rice,  as 
they  did  in  1840.  In  the  former  year,  they  were  not  permitted  to  buy  a  pound 
of  foreign  beef,  mutton,  or  fish.  In  the  latter  year  they  were  able  to  buy,  and 
did  buy,  beef,  mutton,  and  fish  to  the  amount  of  $60,000,000.  Now,  when  a 
man  sells  four  times  as  much  as  he  did,  and  buys  four  times  as  much  as  he  did, 
you  say  at  once  his  condition  is  greatly  improved.  This  is  what  a  tariff  for 
revenue  has  done  for  England.  It  will  do  the  same  for  America.  The  same 
remarkable  contrast  is  presented  by  the  rate  of  wages.  This  increased  in  Eng- 
land five  per  cent  from  1872  to  1880,  while  during  the  same  time  it  diminished 
in  Massachusetts  five  and  a  half  per  cent. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts,  why  should  we  hesitate  longer,  and  "  linger  trembling 
on  the  brink"?  You 

NEEDED  NO  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF 

to  enable  the  "  Puritan "  or  the  "  Volunteer"  to  beat  the  English  yachts.  You 
needed  no  protective  tariff  to  enable  your  recruits  to  defeat  at  New  Orleans  the 
veterans  of  the  Peninsula,  nor  was  it  a  protective  tariff  that  made  the  "  Guer- 
riere  "  haul  down  her  flag  to  old  "  Ironsides."  You  needed  no  protective  tariff 
to  enable  the  genius  of  Morse  to  furnish  mankind  with  the  telegraph.  In 
courage,  in  industry,  in  enterprise,  in  effectiveness  of  labor,  we  lead  the  world, 
and  need  fear  no  competition  from  any  quarter.  Protection  is  a  monstrous 


14 

misnomer.  The  best  proof  of  our  skill  is,  that  we  have  borne  this  burden  so 
long  without  the  destruction  of  all  our  industries.  Some  of  them  have  been 
already  destroyed. 

The  building  of  ships  for  foreign  trade  is  practically  extinct.  We  only  build 
ships  for  the  coastwise  trade,  because  foreign-built  ships  are  prohibited  from 
engaging  in  the  latter.  The  copper-smelting  industry  formerly  furnished 
employment  to  great  numbers  of  people  in  Boston  and  New  York,  but  has  been 
destroyed  by  the  duty  on  copper  ore,  the  only  result  of  which  has  been  to 
increase  the  dividends  of  the  owners  of  the  mines  of  Michigan.  Base  and  mon- 
strous ingratitude  they  have  shown,  in  entering  into  a  combination  with  a  French 
syndicate  to  increase  the  price  of  copper,  and  thus  levy  a  tax  on  every  manufac- 
turer of  brass  or  copper  goods  in  America,  to  swell  their  already  enormous 
dividends.  Will  the  citizens  of  Boston,  the  children  of  the  men  who  rebelled 
against  a  tax  on  tea,  submit  any  longer  to  this  shameful  injustice  ?  Or  will  you 
say  to  every  Massachusetts  Congressman,  Vote  to  reduce  our  tariff  taxes,  or 
"  never  more  be  officer  of  mine  "  ? 

I  have  shown  you  how  the  greed  of  the  owners  of  iron  and  copper  mines, 
short-sighted  as  greed  always  is,  has  destroyed  two  important  branches  of  trade. 
And  this  same  greed  has,  wherever  it  could,  prevented  us  from  competing  suc- 
cessfully in  foreign  markets,  and  reaping  there  the  reward  to  which  American 
industry  and  skill  are  justly  entitled.  I  asked  the  largest  hardware  manufac- 
turer in  this  country  to  send  specimens  of  his  goods  to  a  foreign  exposition. 
He  answered,  "  The  tariff  prevents  me  from  selling  my  goods  abroad,  and  why 
should  I  send  them  my  patterns.  But  give  me  free  raw  materials,  and  I  fear  no 
European  competition."  And  he  added,  "If  I  could  get  my  materials  free  of 
tax,  I  would  increase  my  wages,  increase  my  production,  and  diminish  the  cost 
of  my  goods."  Your  own  manufacturer  of  bicycles  would  tell  you  the  same 
thing.  Of  this,  indeed,  illustrations  are  innumerable.  When  we  can  get  our 
materials  free  of  tax,  we  export  the  goods  made  of  those  materials,  and  make 
money  on  them.  Wherever  our  materials  are  taxed,  we  cannot  compete  with 
other  nations  who  do  not  tax  materials.  In  other  words,  the  reason  we  cannot 
compete  with  other  nations  is  not  that  wages  are  high,  but 

BECAUSE  MATERIALS   ABE  DEAR. 

We  raise  our  own  cotton,  and  we  export  $12,000,000  worth  of  manufactured 
cotton  goods.  We  produce  our  own  petroleum,  and  we  export  $38,000,000  worth 
of  illuminating-oil.  Hides  are  admitted  free  of  duty,  and  we  export  $9,000,000 
worth  of  leather  and  leather  goods.  But  there  is  a  tax  on  wool  ;  and  although 
we  produced  in  1880  $22,000,000  worth  of  carpets,  we  exported  the  insignificant 
amount  of  $10,750.  There  is  a  duty  on  tin  plates,  on  copper  and  on  iron  ;  and 
although  we  produced  in  1880  over  $20,000,000  worth  of  tin  ware,  copper  ware, 
and  sheet-iron  ware,  our  entire  exports  of  all  these  goods,  in  the  manufacture 
of  which  we  are  surpassed  by  no  nation  in  the  world,  was  only  $452,000.  We 
manufactured  in  1880  $17,000,000  worth  of  paints  and  varnish,  and  we  exported 
only  $443,000. 

But  I  can  produce  a  still  more  striking  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  assertion 
that  it  is  not  high  wages,  but  high  taxes,  that  keep  us  back  in  the  race  for  the 
markets  of  the  world.  The  one  thing  that  has  preserved  the  prosperity  of  this 


15 

country,  and  enabled  us  to  hold  our  own  under  the  existing  protective  tariff,  is 
our  export  of  grain  and  provisions.1  Our  farmers  have  to  compete  with  the 
worst-paid  labor  in  the  world,  with  the  Russian  peasant  and  the  Indian  ryot; 
and  yet  they  compete  successfully  in  the  markets  of  Liverpool  and  Paris,  with 
the  grain  of  Odessa  and  Calcutta.  If  you  give  our  manufacturers  of  iron, 
copper,  nickel,  tin,  wool,  and  wood  the  same  free  raw  materials  that  the  manu- 
facturers of  cotton,  petroleum,  and  leather  enjoy,  they  will  need  no  other 
protection. 

The  time  is  at  hand,  when,  if  we  wish  to  continue  our  prosperity,  we  must 
shake  off  the  shackles  that  have  bound  us  so  long,  and  realize  the  truth  that  it 
is  freedom,  American  freedom,  equality  before  the  law,  freedom  from  burden- 
some restrictions  upon  trade,  freedom  from  the  grant  of  privileges  to  one  class 
at  the  expense  of  another,  this  freedom  for  which  our  fathers  fought,  for  which 
they  perilled  their  lives  and  their  fortunes,  and  to  the  support  of  which  they 
pledged  their  sacred  honor,  that  "has  lifted  us  out  of  the  dust,  and  made  us 
whatever  we  are." 

1  See  Appendix  V.,  p.  27. 


STATEMENT    OF   MR.    BUTTERWORTH'S 
ARGUMENT. 


The  essential  point  of  Mr.  Butterworth's  argument  in  reply  was  this:  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  government  to  equalize  differences  of  production  between  this 
country  and  foreign  countries.  This  it  does  by  a  protective  tariff.  The  essen- 
tial difference  in  the  conditions  of  production  lies  in.  the  fact  that  wages  are 
higher  in  this  country  than  they  are  in  Europe.  In  support  of  the  proposition 
that  wages  are  higher  here  than  there,  Mr.  Butterworth  cited  a  large  number 
of  tables  of  wages  compiled  by  various  persons.  He  also  showed  that  the 
prices  of  grain,  clothing,  and  of  sugar  had  decreased  since  1860,  and  that  the 
number  of  patents  granted  had  very  largely  increased ;  and  he  ascribed  these 
results  to  the  beneficial  influence  of  the  tariff.  He  further  showed  the  extreme 
severity  of  the  tariff  laws  of  England  prior  to  the  reduction  of  its  tariff  in  1846. 


16 


MR.  WHEELER'S   REPLY. 


A  considerable  portion  of  the  speech  before  printed  was  delivered  at  the 
debate  as  a  reply  to  Mr.  Butterworth's  argument,  and  to  this  the  reader  is 
referred.  In  addition  to  that,  Mr.  Wheeler  spoke  as  follows:  — 

My  friend  has  asked  me  if  I  can  name  any  thing  that  is  not  lower  than  it 
was  before  the  war.  I  know  that  in  New  York  the  same  apartments  that  the 
laboring-man  could  then  hire  for  $8  a  month,  cost  him  now  $14  and  $16.  And 
I  know  the  cause  of  that  is  the  tariff  on  the  materials  of  which  that  house  is 
built.  The  increased  price  of  those  materials  went  into  the  cost  of  screw-man- 
ufacture, and  into  the  pockets  of  the  owners  of  the  forests  which  produced  the 
wood,  of  the  owners  of  the  lead-mines  from  which  came  the  pipe,  and  into 
the  treasury,  which  levies  a  worse  than  useless  tax  on  the  tin  plates  out  of 
which  the  roofs  were  made.  But  for  this  increase,  the  money  would  have  gone 
into  the  pockets  of  the  mason,  the  bricklayer,  and  the  workmen  who  built  the 
house.  I  know  this  also:  it  is  not  a  question  of  what  a  tariff  might  be;  it  is 
the  present  tariff  that  is  the  question.  What  we  want,  is  to  put  raw  materials 
on  the  free  list.  The  inequalities  in  condition  that  my  friend  complains  of 
are  inequalities  chiefly  caused  by  the  tax  on  raw  materials. 

The  present  high  protective  tariff  is  an  injury  to  the  wage-earner,  and  keeps 
his  wages  down.  Mark  my  words,  and  listen,  citizens  of  Boston,  every  one  of 
you!  Every  man  that  lives  twenty  years  from  now,  will  live  to  see  raw  mate- 
rials on  the  free  list,  and  American  manufacturers  leading  the  manufacturers 
of  the  world.  You  will  live  to  see  American  ships  thronging  the  harbor  of 
Boston,  and  carrying  the  products  of  your  mills  and  your  industries  all  over  the 
world.  They  would  now,  but  that  the  present  tariff  has  been  like  a  millstone 
about  our  necks  for  twenty  years.1  Who  can  tell  me  that  it  is  not  an  injury  to 
your  woollen-manufacturers  to  pay  the  tax  on  wool  ?  The  woollen-manufac- 
turers know  it  is;  and  the  day  that  tax  is  repealed,  it  will  increase  the  demand 
for  their  goods,  and  increase  the  wages  of  their  workmen. 

FURTHER  REMARKS  BY  MR.  WHEELER. 

The  following  considerations  are  presented  by  Mr.  Wheeler  as  supplementary 
to  what  was  said  in  the  debate :  — 

There  is  a  difference  in  the  conditions  of  production  between  those  in 
America  and  in  foreign  countries.  But  some  of  those  conditions  are  favor- 

1  See  Appendix  VI.,  p.  28. 

17 


18 

able  to  this  country.  Attention  has  been  called  before  to  the  greater  produc- 
tiveness of  American  labor.  Another  condition  is  the  great  extent  and  cheapness 
of  land  in  this  country.  Another  condition  is  the  greater  accessibility  of  most 
of  our  mineral  deposits,  and  the  consequent  increased  cheapness  involved  in 
getting  them  to  market.  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  higher 
price  of  material  in  this  country  is  a  great  detriment  to  our  manufacturing 
industries.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  tariffs  imposed  by  the  protectionist 
countries  of  Europe  admit  raw  material  free  of  duty.1  The  statement  by  Mr. 
Butterworth,  that  the  question  is  a  question  between  free  trade,  in  the  literal 
sense,  and  a  protective  tariff,  is  a  perversion  of  the  real  issue.  The  tariff 
reformers  do  not  advocate  free  trade  in  the  literal  sense.  They  do  advocate  the 
removal  of  what  they  consider  unjust  and  unequal  burdens  placed  upon  the  great 
majority  of  the  people  for  the  benefit  of  a  few.  If  freedom  means  equality  and 
the  removal  of  unjust  discriminations,  then  they  advocate  freedom  of  trade.  If 
freedom  means  the  abolition  of  all  taxation  on  trade,  they  do  not  advocate  it. 
In  a  concrete  form,  what  they  do  actually  advocate  is  a  repeal  of  taxes  upon 
the  materials  which  enter  into  American  industry,  and  upon  the  actual  neces- 
saries of  life.  They  believe,  that,  while  the  repeal  of  these  taxes  might  possibly 
operate  as  a  temporary  injury  to  a  few,  it  would  produce  a  far  greater  benefit 
to  the  many.  No  doubt,  the  home-market  is  important;  but  no  one  can  contend 
that  the  market  of  sixty  millions  of  people  would  be  injured,  if,  in  addition  to 
this  market,  we  could  secure  the  market  of  three  hundred  millions. 

The  charge  that  we  are  seeking  to  introduce  English  ideas,  and  to  break  down 
American  manufactures  in  order  to  benefit  those  of  England,  is  simply  untrue. 
The  United  States  was  the  first  country  in  the  world  to  introduce  absolute  free- 
dom of  trade  between  the  different  States  composing  a  federal  union.  The 
United  States,  even  in  their  weakness,  when  their  population  was  hardly  more 
than  three  millions  scattered  along  the  seacoast,  enacted  what  was  then  the 
most  liberal  tariff  in  the  world.  The  present  protective  tariff  is  copied  from 
English  laws.  All  the  arguments  that  are  now  advanced  in  its  favor  were  argu- 
ments used  in  opposition  to  the  repeal  of  the  corn-laws.  The  same  gloomy 
predictions,  which  were  then  made  by  Croker  and  the  rest,  are  now  made  by 
the  protectionist  advocates..  They  predicted  ruin  to  the  manufacturer  and  the 
farmer.  The  result  has  been  increased  prosperity.  Mr.  Butterworth  closed  his 
argument  by  an  expression  in  which  I  heartily  concur:  "  I  am  first,  last,  and 
all  the  time,  for  my  country."  But  I  am  proud  of  my  country's  strength  and 
unequalled  national  resources.  With  them,  and  with  free  raw  materials,  we 
need  fear  no  competition  in  the  production  of  staple  articles,  whether  made  of 
wool,  of  cotton,  or  of  leather;  and  it  is  because  I  have  faith  in  the  skill  and 
enterprise  of  my  countrymen  that  I  favor  the  removal  of  the  burdensome  taxes 
that  obstruct  our  trade  with  foreign  countries,  and  injure  us  as  well  as  them. 

1  A  table  of  these  tariffs  will  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  Schoenhof  on  the  "  Destructive 
Influence  of  the  Tariff." 


APPENDIX, 

STATEMENTS  WHICH  PROTECTIONISTS  HAVE  CONTRADICTED, 


I.  —  BRASS  AND   THE  TARIFF  (p.  8). 

Mr.  Wheeler  says,  — 

"An  article  in  'The  New- York  Tribune,'  from  Charles  Durand,  Ansonia, 
Conn.,  on  the  above  subject,  is  too  good  to  be  lost.  He  quotes  from  my  address 
that  '  the  Americans  make  the  best  brass  goods  in  the  world,  but  cannot  export 
them  because  of  the  duty  on  copper,'  and  proceeds  to  say,  '  In  this  narrow 
valley  of  the  Naugatuck,  —  thirty  miles  long  and  five  miles  wide,  —  we  use 
about  one  hundred  million  pounds  of  copper  annually  in  brass  and  copper 
manufactures,  and  Mr.  Wheeler  can  put  the  entire  duty  on  this  vast  amount  in 
his  vest  pocket  in  pennies,  and  not  feel  the  burden.' 

"  This  is  undoubtedly  true,  and  simply  shows  the  well-known  fact  that  the 
duty  on  copper  is  so  high  as  to  be  prohibitory.  But  if  there  had  been  no  duty 
on  copper  for  the  last  ten  years,  the  cost  to  the  manufacturers  who  used  this 
one  hundred  million  pounds  of  copper  would  have  been  vastly  less,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  price  of  copper  in  Europe  during  most  of  that  time  was 
much  less  than  the  American  price.  In  fact,  during  most  of  this  time,  the 
owners  of  the  copper-mines  on  Lake  Superior  have  produced  more  copper  than 
would  supply  the  American  market,  and  have  sold  it  abroad  for  much  less 
than  the  price  at  which  they  sold  it  in  this  country.  Probably  a  fair  average  of 
the  difference  in  the  price  of  copper  produced  by  the  tariff  during  the  last  twenty 
years  would  be  at  least  two  cents  a  pound,  which  makes  a  total  of  two  million 
dollars  a  year  paid  by  the  Xaugatuck  manufacturers  to  the  mine  owners  of  the 
Lake-Superior  copper-district. 

"  The  difference  in  price  during  the  last  census  year,  as  shown  by  the  official 
returns  of  the  two  countries,  was  three  cents  and  a  half  a  pound.  Since  then  it 
has  varied,  the  difference  being  sometimes  more  and  sometimes  less  than  this. 
At  present  a  syndicate  has  forced  up  the  European  price;  but  in  the  interest 
of  the  public,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  will  break  down  as  the  tin  syndicate 
has.  Tariffs,  trusts,  and  syndicates  all  aim  to  increase  the  price  of  natural 
products,  and  levy  a  tax  on  the  many  consumers  to  benefit  a  few  producers. 
On  this  branch  of  the  subject  I  will  only  add,  that  the  duty  on  copper  in  the 
form  of  ores  was  three  cents  a  pound  until  the  last  revision,  in  1883,  when  it 
was  reduced  to  two  cents  and  a  half.  The  duty  on  copper  in  bars  and  ingots 
was  five  cents,  then  reduced  to  four. 

19 


20 

"The  claim  is  sometimes  made  with  a  serious  face,  that  the  tariff  does  not 
increase  the  American  price  of  goods.  If  this  were  true,  the  tariff  would  be 
useless ;  but  it  is  not  true,  and  this  every  person  who  has  studied  the  subject 
knows  very  well.  As  Mr.  Rosengarten,  the  quinine  manufacturer,  said  before 
the  Tariff  Commission  in  1882,  '  As  I  understand  it,  the  object  of  the  tariff  is 
to  make  the  article  higher;  otherwise,  there  would  be  no  advantage  in  having  a 
tariff,  which  I  can  see.' 

"Mr.  Durand  adds:  'During  the  Russian  and  Turkish  war,  we  loaded  steam- 
ships at  New  Haven  with  the  products  of  our  brass  and  copper  mills  direct  for 
Mediterranean  ports,  and  are  now  shipping  more  or  less  of  the  products  of  our 
mills  to  foreign  markets.' 

"  This  statement  simply  shows  that,  in  spite  of  the  increase  in  the  American 
price  of  copper  caused  by  the  tariff,  the  ingenuity  of  our  manufacturers  and 
the  skill  of  our  workmen  is  such  that,  to  a  limited  extent,  we  are  able  to  export 
manufactures  of  copper.  This  is  a  wonderful  tribute  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
American  workman,  and  shows  conclusively  that  if  the  bounty  of  two  million 
dollars  a  year  which  the  Naugatuck  manufacturers  pay  to  the  owners  of  the 
copper-mines  were  removed,  the  export  of  copper  goods  would  be  quadrupled, 
as  the  export  of  leather  has  been  since  the  repeal  of  the  duty  on  hides.  But 
our  export  of  copper  and  its  manufactures  now,  bears  a  very  small  proportion 
to  our  total  product.  In  1880  the  production  of  copper  in  this  country  was 

valued  at §9,458,434 

From  this  we  manufactured  goods  worth 15,578,919 

Beside  what  are  enumerated  in  the  census  in  combina- 
tion with  tin  and  sheet-iron  ware,  worth  at  least     .     5,000,000 

—  $30,037,353 
Our  entire  exports  of  copper  and  copper-ware  in  the  corresponding 

fiscal  year  were  only $876,395 

and  in  1887,  —  including  copper,  which  we  exported  largely,  —  the 

total  exports  were  only $3,727,447 

We  export  copper  because  American  copper  is  more  ductile,  and  is  really  the 
best. 

"  A  repeal  of  the  duty  of  two  and  one-half  cents  a  pound  on  copper  in  the  ore, 
and  four  cents  a  pound  on  copper  bars  and  ingots,  would  make  a  market  abroad 
for  the  product  of  every  brass-factory  in  Connecticut.  No  other  State  in 
America  is  so  much  injured  by  the  existing  tariff  as  that  State.  Nowhere  has 
labor-saving  machinery  been  brought  to  a  greater  perfection.  Mr.  Sargent,  the 
hardware  manufacturer  of  New  Haven,  has  repeatedly  said  hi  public,  that  if  he 
could  get  the  material  for  his  hardware  free  of  tax,  he  would  spend  one-third 
of  the  saving  in  increasing  his  works,  one-third  in  increasing  the  wages  of  his 
workmen,  and  the  other  third  in  reducing  the  price  of  the  product.  If  the  work- 
men of  Connecticut  understood  their  real  interest,  they  would  be  unanimous  for 
the  repeal  of  the  duty  on  raw  materials,  which  diminishes  wages,  increases  the 
cost  of  the  finished  product,  and  almost  entirely  prevents  the  export  of  American 
manufactured  goods." 


21 


II. -NICKEL  AND  SCREWS  (p.  8). 

Mr.  Wheeler  said,  — 

"  There  is  the  great  Meriden  Britannia  Company.  They  make  plated  goods 
of  the  best  quality.  In  making  these  goods  they  need  nickel.  Years  ago,  when 
this  metal  was  discovered  in  the  mines  of  Austria,  the  miners  called  it  nickel, 
because  they  could  make  nothing  of  it.  But  our  friend,  Mr.  Wharton  of  Penn- 
sylvania, who  happens  to  own  the  only  important  nickel-mine  in  the  United 
States,  has  found  out  a  way  to  make  a  very  good  thing  out  of  it.  If  Congress 
had  passed  a  law  making  him  Duke  of  Lancaster,  and  giving  him  a  pension  of 
twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  you  would  all  have  called  it  a  wicked  waste 
of  the  tax-payers'  money,  a  heavy  burden  upon  industry,  a  setting  up  of  a 
privileged  class  opposed  to  the  genius  of  American  institutions.  But  in  all 
except  the  name,  Congress  does  this  very  thing  when  it  puts  so  heavy  a  duty 
upon  nickel  that  manufacturers  are  compelled  to  pay  Mr.  Wharton  what  he 
chooses  to  ask  for  the  product  of  his  mines.  Now  mark  the  result.  The  Meri- 
den Britannia  Company  has  been  obliged  to  build  a  factory  in  Canada,  where 
it  can  get  nickel  free  of  tax;  and,  with  the  products  of  this  factory,  it  supplies 
the  demand  for  plated  goods  in  Canada  and  in  England.  All  this  might  just  as 
well  have  been  done  in  the  United  States,  if  it  were  not  for  the  pension  of 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  more  or  less,  that  a  protective  tariff  compels  you  to 
pay  to  Mr.  Wharton  of  Pennsylvania.  Now  I  assert,  without  fear  of  contradic- 
tion, that,  if  the  manufacturers  of  plated  goods  in  this  country  could  get  their 
nickel  free  of  tax,  they  could  supply  the  markets  of  the  world.  The  demand 
for  labor  would  be  increased,  and,  of  necessity,  the  wages  of  the  laborer  would 
go  up.  But  no:  our  industry  may  suffer,  our  laborers  be  deprived  of  work, 
our  people  lose  the  fruits  of  their  skill  and  enterprise;  all  these  may  perish,  but 
let  Mr.  Wharton  levy  his  annual  tax,  and  mislead  the  people  by  calling  it 
protection  to  American  industry. 

"  '  Let  art  and  learning,  trade  and  commerce,  die, 
But  leave  us  still  our  old  nobility.' 

"  Take  another  illustration.  The  American  Screw  Company  succeeded  in 
getting  a  paternal  Congress  to  levy  a  tax  upon  screws,  so  heavy  as  to  be  pro- 
hibitory. For  many  years  it  was  prohibitory,  but  at  last  the  skill  and  ingenuity 
of  English  manufacturers  enabled  them  to  make  their  screws  so  much  cheaper 
that  Mr.  Chamberlain  began  to  export  screws  to  this  country;  and  thereupon 
the  Screw  Company,  in  order  to  prevent  this  interference  with  its  monopoly, 
found  it  profitable  to  pay  Mr.  Chamberlain's  company  a  large  sum  of  money  in 
consideration  of  his  omitting  to  ship  screws  to  this  country,  and  thus  prevented 
the  manufacturers  of  Lowell  and  Lawrence  from  exchanging  their  goods  for 
the  products  of  his  manufacture.  And  yet,  astonishing  as  the  fact  may  seem, 
this  same  Providence  Screw  Company  has  recently  established  in  Canada  a 
manufactory  of  screws.  The  tax  on  iron  in  Canada  is  less  than  it  is  in  this 
country,  and  it  is  consequently  able  to  make  screws  there  cheaper  than  it  can 
here.  Thus,  in  a  country  where  iron  is  cheap,  it  makes  cheap  screws  to  supply 
the  builders  of  England  and  Canada,  while  every  builder  in  America  is  taxed  to 


22 

increase  the   profits  of   its   Khode   Island   factories;    and   the  wages    of   its 
workmen  are  reduced  by  the  fact  that  the  demand  for  the  screws  which  they 
make  in  this  country  is  limited  to  the  American  market." 
These  remarks  led  to  the  f  ollowing  correspondence :  — 


BOSTON,  MASS.,  March  29, 1888. 
MERIDEN  BRITANNIA  Co.,  MERIDEN,  CONN. 

Gentlemen,  —  I  enclose  herewith  a  report  of  the  debate  between  Mr.  Wheeler  and 
Mr.  Butterworth.  The  report  is  that  of  a  Democratic  paper  in  this  city,  and  Mr. 
Wheeler  revised  the  speech.  It  is  therefore  authentic.  You  will  see  that  I  have 
marked  a  portion  of  it,  and  by  reading  you  will  quickly  see  the  reason.  Mr. 
Wheeler  makes  statements  there  about  your  business,  and  I  want  to  know  if  they 
are  correct. 

I  will  add  that  my  purpose  in  addressing  you  is  to  use  whatever  reply  you  may 
make  against  the  free-traders,  and  I  hope  that  you  will  furnish  a  vigorous  and 
powerful  statement  if  your  interests  havT  been  misrepresented. 

Why  did  you  establish  a  factory  in  Canada  ?  Was  it  for  your  export  trade,  or 
was  it  to  capture  the  Canadian  market  from  which  you  were  excluded,  owing  to 
the  protective  duties  enforced  there  ? 

Are  wages  in  your  Canadian  factory  as  high  as  in  your  American  factory  ? 

Do  you  get  raw  materials  cheaper  in  Canada  than  you  can  in  the  United  States  ? 
Is  that  the  reason  that  you  established  a  factory  in  Canada  ? 

If  all  raw  materials  were  placed  upon  the  free  list,  allowing  that  that  term 
could  be  applied  to  such  products  as  coal,  iron,  nickel,  lumber,  salt,  and  flax, 
would  you  be  enabled  to  secure  an  export  trade  from  the  factory  in  the  United 
States  ? 

Would  not  the  higher  wages  in  this  country  prevent  you  from  securing  an 
export  trade  ? 

Have  you  not  already  an  export  trade  from  the  United  States  in  spite  of  the 
high  cost  of  raw  materials  and  labor  ? 

Has  not  that  export  trade  been  secured  owing  to  the  superiority  and  reliability 
of  your  products,  in  which  you  doubtless  take  great  pride  ? 

Are  Mr.  Wheeler's  assertions  true,  or  false  ?  If  the  latter,  please  give  me  spe- 
cifically the  facts,  and  greatly  oblige, 


Very  truly  yours, 


HERBERT  RADCLYFFE, 

Secretary  Home  Market  Club. 


MERIDEN,  CONN.,  April  3, 1888. 
HERBERT  RADCLYFFE,  Esq.,  Secretary  Home  Market  Club,  Boston,  Mass. 

Dear  Sir,  — Your  favor  of  the  29th  ult.  at  hand.  Yours  is  not  the  first  inquiry 
we  have  had  about  the  statement  made  by  Mr.  E.  P.  Wheeler  in  regard  to  our 
Canada  factory.  He  must  have  been  making  the  same  statement  for  some  time 
and  at  several  places.  We  now  tell  you  as  we  have  before  told  those  inquiring 
about  it,  that  it  is  wholly  untrue.  As  you  are  probably  aware,  some  years  ago  the 
Canadian  Government  placed  quite  a  large  duty  on  all  plated  ware  brought  into 
the  country,  in  order  to  protect  her  own  manufacturers.  We  were  practically 
excluded,  and  were  obliged  to  do  one  of  two  things,  either  give  up  our  Canadian 


23 

trade,  or  start  a  factory  there.  We  did  the  latter,  and  with  very  good  results;  for 
we  not  only  held  the  trade  which  we  then  had,  but  have  increased  the  same  from 
three  to  four  fold,  at  the  same  time  furnishing  employment  to  quite  a  large  num- 
ber of  people. 

Not  one  cent's  worth  of  goods  manufactured  there  are  exported.  They  are  all 
used  in  Canada  and  the  Provinces.  The  question  of  nickel  did  not  enter  into  the 
problem  at  all. 

As  to  wages  paid  there,  they  do  not  differ  materially  from  what  we  pay  here. 
All  of  the  materials  used  by  our  Canada  factory  are  furnished  to  them  from  Meri- 
den;  and,  of  course,  this  would  show  that  the  reason  for  starting  there  cculd  not 
have  been  on  account  of  getting  raw  materials  cheaper  in  Canada. 

The  only  articles  you  mention  in  the  list  of  raw  materials  which  would  affect 
us  at  all,  are  nickel  and  coal.  As  the  amount  paid  for  this  latter  item  is  such  a 
small  sum,  we  ignore  it  entirely,  and  only  take  up  the  question  of  nickel.  Not 
many  years  ago  all  the  nickel  which  we  used  was  imported  from  Europe  at  a 
cost  of  from  a  dollar  and  a  half  to  two  dollars  a  pound. 

When  the  nickel-mine,  owned  by  Mr.  Joseph  Wharton,  was  discovered,  the 
United  States  Government,  in  order  to  induce  him  to  work  it,  placed  on  nickel  a 
duty  of  twenty-five  cents  per  pound.  In  1883,  under  the  Arthur  administration, 
this  was  reduced  to  fifteen  cents  a  pound;  and  the  cost  of  nickel  to-day  is  about 
sixty-five  cents  per  pound,  of  which  fifteen  cents  is  protective  duty.  We  use  no 
nickel  in  its  primitive  state,  but  it  forms  from  ten  to  twenty-one  per  cent  of  all 
the  German  and  nickel  silver  which  we  use;  and  for  every  pound  we  pay  two  and  a 
quarter  cents  more  than  if  there  was  no  duty.  When  we  contrast  this  small  amount 
with  the  price  which  nickel  has  been  reduced  by  reason  of  the  protective  tariff,  say 
eighty-five  cents  to  a  dollar  and  thirty-five  cents  per  pound,  we  are  perfectly  satis- 
fied to  let  the  duty  remain  as  it  is.  If  the  removal  of  the  duty  on  nickel  would 
enable  us  to  get  nickel  fifteen  cents  a  pound  cheaper,  it  would  make  comparatively 
little  difference  in  the  cost  to  us  of  our  siver-plated  goods,  the  principal  element 
of  cost  being  the  amount  which  we  pay  for  labor.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
removal  of  the  duty  should,  as  it  might,  result  in  stopping  the  production  of 
nickel  by  Mr. Wharton,  the  price  of  the  article  would,  we  think,  be  increased,  as 
the  few  foreign  producers  could  easily  combine  to  enhance  it. 

We  do  not  know  how  profitable  the  business  is  to  Mr.  Wharton,  but  feel  sure 
that  a  tariff  which  will  enable  him  to  continue  the  business  at  a  fair  profit  is  for 
the  advantage  of  the  manufacturer,  the  laborer,  and  the  consumer  alike. 

We  now  export  goods  to  almost  every  civilized  country  on  the  globe,  with  one 
notable  exception,  France,  where  the  protective  duty  on  plated  ware  is  so  high 
that  we  are  practically  excluded  from  their  markets.  Our  principal  points  of 
export  are  Australia  and  South  America;  and  the  principal  competitor  we  have  in 
these  markets  (outside  of  the  manufacturers  in  the  United  States)  is  England, 
who,  owing  to  cheaper  paid  labor,  is  enabled  to  sell  goods  very  low,  and  we 
believe  the  success  we  have  attained  is  almost  wholly  due  to  the  superiority  in  the 
design  and  finish  of  our  goods,  which  is  the  direct  result  of  the  sharp  competition 
among  the  manufacturers  of  the  United  States,  and  is  directly  traceable  to  the 
principle  of  protection,  in  which  we  all  most  thoroughly  believe.  We  are  much 
obliged  to  Mr.  Wheeler  for  his  free  advertisement,  but  are  sorry  that  he  has  so 
little  regard  for  the  truth  as  far  as  it  pertains  to  us. 

Very  truly  yours, 

MERIDEN  BRITANNIA  CO. 
HORACE  C.  WILCOX,  Pres. 


24 

PROVIDENCE,  March  30, 1888. 
HERBERT  RADCLYFFE,  Esq.,  Secretary  Home  Market  Club,  Boston,  Mass. 

Dear  Sir,  — Acknowledging  receipt  of,  and  replying  to,  your  favor  of  29th 
inst.,  beg  to  say,  with  reference  to  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain's  statement  quoted 
by  Mr.  Everett  P.  "Wheeler  in  his  recent  Boston  speech,  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  was 
very  careful  to  omit  saying  any  thing  about  the  circumstances  under  which  his 
firm  demanded  a  subsidy  from  our  company. 

Nearly  thirty  years  ago,  his  firm  (Nettlefolds  &  Chamberlain,  Birmingham, 
England)  was  enabled,  through  the  adoption  of  automatic  machinery  for  produ- 
cing gimlet-pointed  screws,  to  break  down  every  competitor  in  England,  and  obtain 
a  monopoly  in  the  foreign  manufacture  of  that  product.  Then,  with  free  raw 
material,  cheap  labor,  supplies,  etc.,  Mr.  Chamberlain  turned  his  attention  to  the 
American  market;  and,  to  save  our  business,  we  were  compelled  to  submit  to  his 
demands,  although  not  to  such  an  extent  as  is  popularly  supposed.  All  this  was 
prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  tariff  in  1861,  and,  if  at  that  time  there  had  been  such 
a  tariff  on  wood-screws  as  is  usually  represented,  Mr.  Chamberlain  would  not 
have  had  the  advantage  over  us  that  he  did.  Although  we  owned  the  United 
States  patents  for  the  kind  of  machinery  employed  by  Nettlefolds  &  Chamberlain 
in  England,  these  patents  did  not  protect  against  the  importation  into  this  country 
of  their  product  manufactured  in  England. 

We  made  money  during  the  war,  as  most  manufacturers  did,  but  of  late  our 
business  has  been  very  unremunerative.  Out  of  nearly  forty  companies,  most  of 
which  have  come  into  existence  since  our  patents  expired,  only  ten  continue  in 
operation;  and  our  own  company,  with  its  large  accumulations,  and  with  other 
lines  of  manufacture  to  aid  us  beside  the  wood-screw  business,  we  were  unable  to 
pay  any  dividends  in  1885,  1886,  and  1887.  The  screw-business  is  one  requiring 
the  investment  of  large  capital  and  intricate  machinery,  and  the  value  of  the 
product  is  so  small  that  we  cannot  turn  our  capital  oftener  than  once  in  two  years. 
All  the  iron  we  consume  is  imported,  and,  under  the  existing  tariff,  pays  a  duty 
of  about  fifty  per  cent  ad  valorem.  "We  are  advised  that  the  Mills  Bill  proposes 
to  increase  this  duty  to  eighty  per  cent,  while  very  inconsistently  reducing  the 
tariff  on  screws  to  thirty-five  per  cent  ad  valorem.  For  many  years  we  have 
been  threatened  with  this  kind  of  legislation;  and,  anticipating  its  effect  on  our 
business  if  adopted,  we,  some  years  since,  started  a  branch  establishment  in 
Canada,  to  enable  us,  in  case  of  necessity,  to  remove  our  machinery  from  Provi- 
dence, and  manufacture  in  Canada  for  this  market.  The  Canadian  Government 
has  treated  us  with  fairness,  recently  imposing  a  duty  on  our  product  sufficient 
to  give  us  full  benefit  of  the  Canadian  market,  and  has  removed  all  duty  upon 
our  iron. 

There  is  not  much  difference  in  the  cost  of  manufacture  of  screws  in  the  United 
States  and  Canada.  With  the  encouragement  given  our  Canadian  enterprise,  the 
people  there  now  obtain  screws  ortnuch  better  quality  than  heretofore,  and  at 
lower  prices  than  when  imported,  with  all  the  benefits  of  home  manufacture. 
On  that  side  of  the  line  we  are  prosperous,  but  on  this  side  we  have  had  a  hard 
struggle  to  hold  our  own. 

As  to  exporting  screws,  we  can  do  nothing  as  against  English  manufacturers, 
as  they  can  command  all  the  markets  where  they  are  not  shut  out  by  a  tariff. 

Trusting  that  this  letter  will  answer  your  purposes,  we  remain, 


Yours  truly, 


AMERICAN  SCREW  COMPANY. 

EDWIN  G.  ANGELL,  Pres. 


25 

To  the  Editor  of  "  The  Boston  Post." 

The  tariff  reformers  should  be  much  obliged  to  Mr.  Radclyffe  for  obtaining  from 
the  Meriden  Britannia  Company  and  the  American  Screw  Company  their  letters 
on  nickel,  screws,  and  the  tariff.  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  that  the  statement  as 
to  the  Meriden  Britannia  Company  that  I  made  in  the  joint  debate,  was  first  made 
by  me  before  the  tariff  commission  July  26, 1882,  and  is  printed  on  p.  220  of  their 
report.  Mr.  Wharton  was  present  when  I  made  the  statement;  and  another 
gentleman  interested  in  the  Meriden  Britannia  Company  was,  if  memory  serve  me, 
also  present.  Neither  of  them  denied  it  at  the  time,  nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  its 
essential  truth  ever  been  publicly  denied.  Nor,  as  I  read  the  letter  of  Mr.  Wilcox, 
does  he  deny  it  now  in  substance,  though  he  denies  the  motive  that  I  imputed  to 
his  company.  As  to  this,  I  can  only  judge  of  its  motives  from  its  acts,  and  my 
statement  respecting  them  he  admits.  Nor  can  I  believe  it  possible  that  any  one 
would  seriously  contend  that  it  would  not  be  a  benefit  to  a  manufacturing  com- 
pany to  have  the  price  of  the  material  which  it  uses,  reduced  fifteen  cents  a 
pound. 

Both  companies,  furthermore,  admit  the  truth  of  my  statement  that  they  have 
established  factories  in  Canada,  in  order  to  supply  a  market  which,  under  the 
existing  tariff,  they  were  unable  to  supply  from  their  factories  in  this  country. 
The  Britannia  Company  also  admits  that  the  wages  in  Canada  do  not  differ 
materially  from  what  they  pay  here.  It  goes  on  to  say  that  the  principal  element 
of  cost  in  its  goods  is  the  amount  which  is  paid  for  labor.  It  adds,  "  "We  now 
export  goods  to  almost  every  civilized  country  on  the  globe." 

Now,  if  it  be  true  that  the  wages  paid  by  the  Meriden  Company  in  Connecticut 
are  higher  than  the  wages  paid  by  the  English  manufacturers  of  plated  goods, 
this  simply  shows  that  the  Meriden  Britannia  Company  is  able  to  make  goods  and 
sell  them  in  England  in  competition  with  the  English  product,  in  spite  of  its  pay- 
ing a  higher  rate  of  wages.  What  other  possible  cause  can  there  be  for  this, 
except  the  greater  efficiency  of  its  labor,  which  is  precisely  what  I  contended  for. 
The  Britannia  Company  says,  "All  the  materials  used  by  our  Canada  factory  are 
furnished  from  Meriden."  Does  it  mean  to  say  that  the  nickel  used  in  Canada 
costs  it  sixty-five  cents  a  pound  net,  which  it  states  is  the  American  price? 
Further  information  on  this  subject  would  be  desirable.  If  the  fact  be  so,  it 
would  only  re-enforce  my  argument  as  to  the  efficiency  of  American  labor.  If  the 
Meriden  Company  is  able  to  stand  an  addition  of  fifteen  cents  in  the  pound  to 
every  pound  of  nickel  it  uses,  to  pay  higher  wages  than  are  paid  in  England,  and 
still  to  compete  in  the  English  market,  no  reasonable  man  could  deny  that  this 
particular  infant  industry  has  reached  a  point  where  it  has  come  to  manhood,  and 
needs  protection  no  longer. 

The  claim  that  the  protective  tariff  has  reduced  the  cost  of  nickel  is  about  as 
absurd  as  the  claim  that  the  protective  tariff  has  reduced  the  cost  of  steel  rails. 
It  is  true  that  the  price  of  nickel  has  fallen,  just  as  the  price  of  steel  rails  has 
fallen;  but  each  reduction  has  been  caused  by  improved  methods  of  manufacture, 
and  has  been  accompanied  by  an  increase  of  wages.  It  might  as  well  be  claimed 
that  the  protective  tariff  has  enabled  us  to  use  buildings  eight  stories  high,  when 
everybody  knows  that  it  is  the  improvements  in  elevators  that  have  made  this 
possible. 

Thus,  every  fact  brought  forward  in  answer  to  rny  argument  supports  the  truth 
of  my  assertion  that  the  cheaper  the  material,  and  the  greater  the  efficiency  of 
labor,  the  higher  the  rate  of  wages ;  and  that  American  high  wages  are  caused  by 
the  latter,  and  not  by  the  tariff. 

As  for  the  Screw  Company,  it  admits  that  the  iron  it  consumes  is  imported,  and 


26 

it  does  not  deny  that  the  duty  on  this  iron  is  much  less  in  Canada  than  in  this 
country;  and  it  admits  that  it  manufactures  there  more  profitably  than  here, 
which  is  precisely  what  I  say.  It  is  very  clear,  therefore,  that  the  Screw  Com- 
pany and  the  consumers  of  screws  would  he  benefited  by  getting  its  iron  in  this 
country  at  a  lower  rate  than  it  now  does. 

If  the  advice  which  the  Screw  Company  has  received  is  correct,  viz.,  that  the 
Mills  Bill  proposes  to  increase  the  duty  on  the  iron  which  it  consumes  to  eighty 
per  cent,  a  reduction  of  the  duty  on  screws  to  thirty-five  per  cent  would,  of  course, 
be  an  inconsistency  which  ought  to  be  corrected.  This,  however,  is  a  feature 
copied  from  many  like  ones  in  the  present  tariff.  There  are  numerous  instances 
in  which,  in  order  to  give  a  fancied  benefit  to  the  American  producers  of  material, 
a  tax  is  imposed  upon  it  greater  than  the  tax  upon  the  finished  product,  to  the 
great  detriment  of  our  general  manufactures.  If  the  Screw  Company  should  now 
suffer  from  such  a  course,  it  would  only  have  to  suffer  for  the  bad  example  set  by 
its  high  protective  friends. 

EVERETT  P.  WHEELER. 
NEW  YORK,  April  5. 

Mr.  Wheeler  says  further,  — 

"  The  changes  in  the  Canadian  tariff,  which  we  may  naturally  suppose  to  have 
been  promoted  by  the  manufacturers  of  plated  goods,  are  instructive.  In  1879, 
nickel  was  put  on  the  free  list;  in  1882,  '  Britannia  metal  in  pigs  and  bars'  was 
added  to  the  free  list;  in  1885,  'silver  and  German-silver  in  sheets  for  manufact- 
uring purposes '  were  also  put  on  the  free  list.  If,  as  Mr.  Wilcox  intimates  in 
his  letter,  free  raw  material  is  of  no  benefit  to  the  manufacturers,  why  these 
changes  in  the  Canadian  tariff  ? 

"  Since  this  speech  was  delivered,  I  have  learned  of  a  Philadelphia  woollen- 
company  that  has  leased  a  woollen-mill  in  Bradford,  England,  in  order  to  buy 
wool  free  of  duty,  and  exports  the  goods  there  made  to  the  United  States,  but 
which  would  be  glad  to  return  to  this  country  if  the  tax  on  wool  should  be 
repealed. 

"  A  very  curious  illustration  of  the  fact  stated  in  the  argument,  and  by  the 
Meriden  Company,  that  American  labor,  by  the  use  of  superior  machinery,  is,  in 
many  branches  of  industry,  superior  to  that  of  foreign  countries,  is  given  in  'The 
Engineering  News '  of  March  17,  1888.  It  is  there  shown  that  the  American 
locomotive  is  a  superior  machine  to  the  German,  and  will  draw  more  tons  of 
freight.  For  example,  on  a  grade  of  one  foot  in  a  hundred,  the  American 
locomotive  will  draw  644  tons;  the  German,  only  348." 

III.  —  HOUSE-BUILDING   (p.  8). 

Since  the  debate,  "The  Boston  Advertiser"  (protectionist)  has  furnished 
some  tables  which  illustrate  the  subject  of  house-building.  Mr.  Wheeler  says 
of  them,  — 

"  According  to  these  tables  the  average  cost  of  building  materials  has  in- 
creased fourteen  per  cent  since  1859,  while  the  average  wages  in  the  trades 
most  concerned  in  the  building  of  a  house  have  increased  forty-eight  per  cent. 
They  illustrate  very  well  two  of  the  statements  in  the  speech.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  living  since  1859  has  been  much  more 
than  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  these  materials.  Relatively,  therefore,  to  the 


27 

general  increase  in  the  cost  of  living,  the  cost  of  the  materials  of  our  houses 
has  diminished.  We  should  therefore  expect  to  find  a  large  relative  increase 
in  the  wages  of  the  persons  employed  in  the  use  of  these  materials,  not  simply 
because  of  the  relative  cheapness  of  the  material,  but  also  because  of  the  greater 
demand  for  houses,  caused  by  the  rapid  growth  of  our  cities.  This  '  The  Adver- 
tiser' shows  to  be  what  has  actually  taken  place.  On  the  other  hand,  no  one 
can  pretend  that  the  wages  of  those  who  work  on  houses  are  increased  by  a 
protective  tariff.  Now,  if  it  were  true  that  the  increase  of  wages  is  caused  by 
a  protective  tariff, 'we  should  expect  that  this  increase  would  not  exist  in  those 
trades  which  are  not,  so  to  speak,  protected.  As  the  contrary  is  shown  by  '  The 
Advertiser '  to  be  the  fact,  the  inference  follows  that  this  increase  is  not  due 
to  the  tariff,  but  to  the  other  causes  stated  in  the  argument. 

"'The  Advertiser'  also  argues  that  if  wages  were  less,  more  houses  could  be 
built  for  the  same  money,  and  that  therefore  a  diminution  in  wages  would  be 
as  much  a  benefit  to  the  builder  as  a  diminution  in  the  cost  of  material.  This 
would  be  true  but  for  one  important  consideration  which  'The  Advertiser' 
appears  to  overlook.  The  reduction  of  wages  would  diminish  the  ability  of  the 
wage-earner  to  pay  rent.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  it  is  much  better,  both  for 
the  owner  of  the  building  and  for  the  tenant,  that  the  diminution  should  take 
place,  not  in  the  wages,  but  in  the  price  of  material,  which  is  precisely  the 
argument  of  the  speech.  The  argument  was  also  advanced  in  this  connection, 
as  well  as  in  reference  to  the  statement  in  the  letter  from  the  Meriden  Britannia 
Company,  previously  quoted,  that  the  reduction  in  the  cost  of  many  materials 
was  due  to  the  operation  of  the  tariff.  The  fact  that  it  is  not  a  high  tariff  that 
has  reduced  the  prices  of  material,  is  shown  conclusively  by  the  fact  that  in 
England  prices  generally  have  fallen  much  more  during  the  last  thirty  years 
than  they  have  in  this  country.  For  instance,  the  price  of  steel  rails  in  Eng- 
land in  1869  was  £11  5s.  per  ton,  or  about  $55.  Rails  as  good  have  been  sold 
there  within  two  years  for  £3  14s.,  or  about  $18.75  per  ton,  and  the  price  now 
is  from  $19  to  $21." 

IV. —HENRY  CLAY'S    OPINIONS   (p.  12). 

The  statement  that  "  there  was  a  high  protective  tariff  from  1824  till  1832, 
and  its  results  were  so  disastrous  that  the  very  author  of  it,  Mr.  Clay,  introduced 
a  bill  for  its  gradual  reduction,"  has  been  criticised  on  the  ground  that  Mr. 
Clay's  object  in  introducing  the  compromise  bill  for  a  reduction  of  the  tariff 
was  to  remove  the  irritation  which  the  existing  high  tariff  had  produced  at  the 
South.  This  was  undoubtedly  one  of  its  motives;  but  it  is  also  true  that  Mr. 
Clay,  and  almost  all  the  protectionists  of  his  school,  maintained  that  a  high 
tariff  was  only  a  temporary  measure,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  reduced  as  soon  as 
the  industries  of  the  country  had  become  established.  The  theory  now  advanced, 
that  a  high  protective  tariff  is  a  permanent  blessing,  and  ought  never  to  be 
reduced,  is  the  growth  of  a  later  generation. 

V.  —  FARM- WAGES    (p.  15). 

It  was  said  at  this  point,  — 

"The  average  wages  of  farm-laborers  in  this  country,  including  board,  are 
very  much  higher  than  the  average  wages  of  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing 
industries." 


28 

Mr.  Wheeler  adds:  "  '  The  Boston  Advertiser'  denies  the  truth  of  this  state- 
ment, and  quotes  from  the  report  of  the  Statistician  of  the  National  Bureau  of 
Agriculture  the  statement  that  the  average  rate  of  wages  paid  farm-laborers  in 
Massachusetts  was  in  1882  $30.66.  It  then  quotes  from  the  report  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  a  statement  that  the  average  weekly  wages 
paid  to  men  in  the  twenty-four  principal  manufacturing  industries  in  the  State 
were  $11.85  per  week,  which,  per  month  of  four  weeks,  would  be  $47.40.  It  claims 
that  the  wages  of  agricultural  labor  in  Massachusetts  are  higher  than  they  are  in 
any  other  State  in  the  Union.  The  very  table  it  quotes  shows  the  contrary.  The 
wages  in  California,  of  farm-laborers,  without  board,  in  1882,  are  stated  at 
$38.25;  in  Kansas  and  Oregon  at  $33.50;  and  in  Colorado  at  $36.50.  In  Illinois 
the  nominal  amount  is  somewhat  smaller.  But  it  is  really  larger  when  the  rela- 
tive cost  of  living  there,  and  in  Massachusetts,  is  considered.  Assuming  that  the 
amount  stated,  —  $30.66  a  month,  —  is  correct,  this  monthly  wage  is  more  than 
the  monthly  wages  of  operatives  in  factories,  on  an  average,  throughout  the 
United  States.  The  census  of  1880  shows  this  average  to  be  $346  a  year,  which 
is  equal  to  $28.83  a  month,  or  $6.65  a  week.  If  the  reader  will  compare  the 
monthly  wage  of  farm-laborers  in  Massachusetts  with  that  of  operatives  in  the 
manufacturing  industries,  in  which  they  are  supposed  to  derive  the  greatest 
benefit  from  the  protective  system,  the  contrast  is  equally  striking.  Mr.  Carroll 
D.  Wright's  report,  from  which  'The  Advertiser'  quotes,  states  the  average 
weekly  wages  in  Massachusetts,  of  operatives  in  carpet-mills,  to  be  $6.08;  in 
hosiery  factories,  $6.49;  and  in  woollen-mills,  $6.90. 

"  The  high  average  which  Mr.  Wright  gives  in  the  table  to  which  '  The  Adver- 
tiser '  refers,  arises  from  the  fact  that  in  other  industries  not  specially  benefited 
by  the  tariff,  the  rate  of  wages  is  much  higher  than  in  those  which  are.  For 
example,  he  states  that  the  average  weekly  wages  of  persons  employed  in  build- 
ing industries  in  Massachusetts,  in  1882,  were  $14.99,  which  is  over  twice  the 
average  wages  of  operatives  in  woollen-mills. 

"  However,  I  feel  bound  to  add  that  the  returns  of  the  Statistician  of  the  Agri- 
cultural Department  vary  very  much  from  the  result  of  my  own  observation, 
unless  it  is  intended,  in  the  table  given  by  the  Agricultural  Statistician,  to  in- 
clude boys  on  farms,  who  are  paid  a  lower  price  than  men.  My  own  obser- 
vation, both  in  the  States  of  Vermont  and  New  York,  is  that  the  average  rate  of 
wages  for  men  working  on  farms,  is  much  higher  than  that  stated  in  the  table. 
For  example,  I  think  it  would  surprise  a  Vermont  farmer  to  be  told  that  he 
could  engage  a  man  by  the  month,  with  board,  for  $18.25  a  month.  I  should 
say  that  $25  was  much  nearer  the  mark." 

VI.  — ENGLISH   EXPORTS  AND   AMERICAN  PRODUCTIONS  (p.  17) 

Mr.  Wheeler  says,  — 

"In  the  reply  to  Mr.  Butterworth  as  actually  delivered,  a  statement  was 
made,  not  included  in  the  speech  as  prepared,  which  has  given  rise  to  a  great 
deal  of  comment.  It  involved  a  comparison  between  the  English  export  of 
manufactured  goods  and  American  products  of  similar  goods.  The  purpose 
was  to  make  the  comparison  a  fair  one,  and  to  confine  it  to  such  articles  as 
might  properly  be  called  exportable.  The  time  limited  by  the  rules  of  the 
debate  was  so  short  that  I  was  not  able  to  explain  this  as  fully  as  I  might.  As 


29 

the  facts  are  indisputable,  and  support  the  argument,  they  are  here  briefly 
stated. 

"  The  argument  is,  that  England,  in  spite  of  many  disadvantages  caused  by  her 
class  distinctions,  by  the  crowded  condition  of  her  population,  and  her  limited 
amount  of  land,  has  prospered  since  1849  under  a  tariff  strictly  for  revenue,  and 
that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  we  in  this  country,  with  far  greater 
advantages,  would  prosper  still  more  under  a  similar  tariff,  the  revision  to  be 
made  gradually,  and  with  due  regard  to  vested  interests.  In  other  words,  even 
if  it  be  claimed  that  a  protective  tariff  in  the  beginning  was  an  advantage  to 
American  industry,  the  experience  of  England  has  shown  that,  after  these 
industries  have  attained  maturity,  the  tariff  can  be  removed  or  reduced  to  great 
advantage. 

"  A  fair  test  of  a  nation's  prosperity  is  the  amount  of  the  surplus  which  it  is 
able  to  export.  A  fair  test  of  the  prosperity  of  its  manufactures  is  the  surplus 
of  its  manufactured  products  which  it  is  able  to  export.  The  following  com- 
parative tables  will  illustrate  the  point;  the  census  year,  1880,  being  selected, 
because  official  statistics  are  available  for  that  year :  — 

British  exports  of  American 

British  products.  products. 

Cotton  goods $377,820,280 $210,950,383 

Woollen  goods 103,049,585 160,606,721 

Linen  goods 35,236,805 602,451 

Jute  goods 11,277,515 696,982 

Iron  and  steel 141,951,580 296,557,685 

Hardware  and  cutlery 17,604,390 11,661,370 

Fire-arms 5,426,840 6,736,936 

Tools 1,892,065 4,384,109 


$694,259,060  $693,196,637 

This,  with  the  correction  of  a  clerical  error,  is  a  table  that  was  published  in 
'  The  Boston  Advertiser.' 

"  '  The  Advertiser '  criticised  this  table  on  several  grounds.  One  was,  that  a 
separate  item  for  hardware,  $22,653,693,  was  omitted.  If  this  be  added  to  the 
American  side,  certain  deductions  must  be  made  from  the  item  of  'iron  and 
steel,'  out  of  which  this  hardware  was  manufactured;  for  it  would  not  be  fair 
to  count  the  iron  twice,  —  the  first  as  iron,  and  second  as  hardware,  tools, 
rails,  etc.  The  allowance  for  this  leads  to  a  consideration  of  the  necessity  for 
other  deductions  from  the  same  item,  and  to  certain  additions  which  '  The 
Advertiser'  did  not  mention.  The  pig-iron,  blooms,  etc.,  included  in  the  item 
'  iron  and  steel '  in  the  census  table,  were  made  into  steel,  into  hardware,  or 
other  advanced  forms  of  manufacture.  The  steel  ingots  included  were  made 
into  rails,  tools,  or  other  advanced  forms  of  manufacture.  Thus,  the  amount 
of  the  iron  pigs  and  steel  ingots  was  duplicated  in  the  total  given  in  the  census 
table.  Pig-iron  and  steel  ingots  are  of  no  use  in  themselves.  Their  only  use 
is  to  be  made  into  something  else. 

"  The  details  of  the  item  of  $296,557,885  for  iron  and  steel  are  given  in  Vol.  II. 
of  the  quarto  edition,  Census  Reports,  1880,  pp.  737-708,  by  James  M.  Swank. 
This  article  shows  the  aggregate  value  of  pig-iron  and  iron  blooms  used  in  the 


24199 

30 


United  States  in  1880  to  have  been  $65,081,601,  and  of  steel  ingots  (taking 
the  value  given  for  Bessemer  ingots  under  the  head  of  material,  1,145,711  tons), 
$62,097,536,  making  a  total  of  $128,179,137. 

"  These  materials  were  made  into  the  other  articles  included  in  this  general 
item,  or  into  those  included  in  cutlery,  tools,  fire-arms,  and  hardware.  It  should, 
therefore,  to  avoid  duplication,  be  deducted  from  the  aggregate  after  '  The 
Advertiser's'  item  of  hardware  is  added.  The  result  of  the  addition  and 
subtraction  thus  indicated  is,  — 

Total  table  of  American  products $693,196,637 

Add  for  hardware 22,653,693 

Add  for  other  items  made  of  iron  not  mentioned  by '  The  Advertiser,'        39,391,906 


$755,242,236 
Deduct  for  pigs,  blooms,  and  ingots,  included  in  other  items     .    .    .      128,179,137 


Net  result $627,063,099 

which  is  $67,195,961  less  than  the  English  export  of  corresponding  articles. 

"  The  necessity  of  making  such  deductions  in  order  to  institute  a  fair  compari- 
son will  be  apparent  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  English  exports  are  net. 
There  is  no  duplication  of  material  and  of  the  manufactured  product  made  from 
that  material.  And  the  comparison  would  be  still  more  striking  if  it  were 
corrected,  either  by  reducing  the  American  valuation  to  that  of  England,  or 
vice  versa. 

"  The  reason  why  other  items  of  American  production,  such  as  houses  and 
the  various  industries  which  enter  into  their  construction,  bread-baking  and  the 
preparation  of  food  for  immediate  use,  clothing  and  the  like,  ought  not  fairly 
to  be  included  in  such  a  comparison,  is  that,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  such 
articles  must  in  both  countries  be  chiefly  consumed  at  home.  They  constitute 
necessaries  of  life  which  in  their  final  forms  are  not  exportable.  Yet  even 
in  stating  them,  there  is  constant  duplication  in  the  census  table.  The  leather 
appears  as  such,  and  again  is  added  in  the  form  of  boots  and  shoes.  The  sawed 
lumber  appears  as  such,  and  again  under  the  head  of  carpentering  and  kindling- 
wood.  In  short,  this  census  table  is  useful  as  an  aggregate  statement  of  the 
entire  product  of  our  industries  and  a  consequent  indication  of  our  business 
enterprise.  But  to  add  these  items  together  as  an  illustration  of  our  national 
wealth,  is  as  absurd  as  it  was  to  add  on  the  credit  side  of  the  ledger  the  num- 
ber of  the  year,  in  order  to  get  at  the  profits  of  the  business,  or  as  it  would  be 
to  add  together  the  exchanges  of  the  Boston  banks  for  a  year  in  order  to  get 
at  the  amount  of  Boston  banking  capital.  Indeed,  the  fact  to  which  attention 
is  thus  called,  and  which  has  been  mentioned  by  the  protectionists  as  well  as 
the  tariff  reformers,  to  wit,  that  the  material  of  one  business  is  the  product 
of  another,  is  a  very  important  consideration,  and  ought  always  to  be  borne 
in  mind  in  any  plan  for  the  revision  of  the  tariff.  No  one  can  deny  that  cheap 
material  is  a  benefit;  and  the  question  always  is,  whether  a  reduction  of  the 
tariff  upon  the  materials  of  one  business  will  not  so  cheapen  its  product  as  to 
benefit  the  business  which  uses  those  materials  more  than  the  first  is  injured, 
assuming  that  it  would  be  injured  at  all,  which  generally,  owing  to  increased 
demand,  it  would  not  be." 


000     9 

OFFICERS    FOR    1888. 


PRESIDENT. 
ANSON    PHELPS    STOKES. 


VICE-PRESIDENTS. 


ROBERT    B.   ROOSEVELT. 
JACKSON    S.   SCHULTZ. 


EVERETT    P.   WHEELER. 
CHARLES    H.    MARSHALL. 


RECORDING    SECRETARY. 
RUSSELL    STURGIS. 

CORRESPONDING   SECRETARY. 
EDWARD    P.   DOYLE. 

TREASURER. 
CONSTANT    A.   ANDREWS. 


THE  MEMBERS   OF  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES  FOR  1888. 


ANSON  PHELPS  STOKES. 

EVERETT  P.  WHEELER. 

RUSSELL  STURGIS. 

E.  L.  GODKIN. 

DANIEL  H.  CHAMBERLAIN. 

CONSTANT  A.  ANDREWS. 

R.  R.  BOWKER. 


IRA  BURSLEY. 
E.  J.  DONNELL. 
WILLIAM  M.  IVINS. 
EUGENE  G.  BLACKFORD. 
JOHN  C.  LLOYD. 
GEORGE  HAVEN  PUTNAM. 
HENRY  B.  B.  STAPLER. 


ROBERT  B.  ROOSEVELT. 


. 


. 


i 


• 

. 


